The US Treasury has announced new sanctions against the Venezuelan ‘Tren de Aragua’ gang.
Tren de Aragua began its criminal operations inside Venezuela’s porous jail system and eventually grew its operations across Latin America and the whole globe.
Today, Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s largest gang with an estimated 5,000 members and has recently been linked to numerous criminal investigations in the US and Mexico.
The US’s latest sanctions against Tren de Aragua target its highest-ranking members: Niño Guerrero (gang founder), Johan Petrica (co-founder), Santanita (founding member), and more.
Tren de Aragua reportedly trafficks drugs and humans, sexually exploits women and children, and money launders among other criminal activities.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged to continue persecuting Tren de Aragua members and leaders to halt their noxious behavior.
“The Trump Administration,” said Secretary Bessent, “will not allow Tren de Aragua to continue to terrorize our communities and harm innocent Americans.”
President Donald Trump, in line with his maximum-pressure approach to American adversaries, recently designated Tren de Aragua and other similar groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
The FTO designation expands financial sanctions against the cartels and authorizes the use of military force against them.
Concomitantly, the State Department warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela, inciting rumors of potential US action against Venezuela.
President Trump’s FTO designation of Tren de Aragua followed Republican lawmakers’ requests that the US pressure Venezuela’s undemocratic government.
Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro recently consolidated his grasp on Venezuela’s government by ostensibly winning presidential elections where political opponents were persecuted, threatened, and jailed.
Despite promises of allowing free and fair elections, the Venezuelan regime barred opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from participating in the same.
However, Machado invested her political capital into former Venezuelan Ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez, who subsequently won the presidential elections.
Subsequently, Gonzalez was forced to seek political asylum in Spain after Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro’s regime rejected the election results and threatened to arrest him.
Since then, Maduro has continued persecuting political dissidents and even threatened Machado herself.
