The Venezuelan government took action early this Wednesday against the hideout of the Aragua Train, a criminal gang with international implications that operates from the Tocorón penitentiary, in the state of Aragua, two hours from the capital. Authorities called the raid the “Cacique Guaicaipuro Liberation Operation” and described it as successful in its first phase. Despite the success celebrated in a statement, the government has neither confirmed the arrest of the organization’s leaders such as Héctor Rutherford Guerrero Flores, alias El Niño Guerrero, who has been running the prison for a decade with the approval of the authorities, nor his lieutenants. . Some versions suggest that the criminals had escaped before the prison was captured.
The Aragua train became a regional problem. The huge migration of Venezuelans over the past five years has also driven the exodus of gang members and their involvement in new crimes such as human and women trafficking. This band was formed between 2013 and 2015 and has its origins in the unions involved in the construction of a railway line in the center of the country, which was never completed. First they dedicated themselves to extorting traders and local residents, then they ventured into the crimes of kidnapping and drug trafficking, becoming a transnational organization.
A soldier closes the main entrance to the correctional center during the military intervention Sept. 20. Ariana Cubillos (AP)
Their leader, El Niño Guerrero, made the Tocorón prison his center of operations and his own country, which he supported by collecting the case, a bribe of 8 to 10 dollars a week that they had to pay to stay at the center to stay alive. The nearly 3,000 inmates will be housed in a penitentiary system, a system implemented in a majority of the country’s prisons. According to a report by Runrunes, a nightclub, a swimming pool, shops, betting centers, a zoo and restaurants such as El Sazón del Hampa operated for years without any government control. Other research suggests the band has satellites inside and outside the country, in at least 13 of Venezuela’s 24 states, as well as Colombia, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Costa Rica. It is estimated to number around 4,000 men and has been reported to have declared war on members of the ELN in Venezuela in recent years to control illegal activities on the border with Colombia.
The government noted in the statement that the operation dismantled “a center of conspiracy and crime used by an international criminal network against the Venezuelan population.” The Venezuelan Prisons Observatory has reported that the takeover was agreed with some of the inmates and that some of them also escaped through tunnels and mountains surrounding the prison, according to the organization. “As an organization, we are in favor of regaining control of the prisons under the control of the Pranato (as the criminal leadership of the prisons is called), but we do not believe in negotiated takeovers so that the Pranes leave and do not pay for crimes committed,” the NGO said in a statement.
Relatives of prisoners watch the soldiers during operations in the correctional center. Ariana Cubillos (AP)
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The government assured that the enormous deployment of security forces prevented a mass escape from Tocorón prison. In statements to state broadcaster VTV, Interior and Justice Minister Remigio Ceballos noted that the police and military had guaranteed “the human rights of those deprived of their freedom,” as well as “the life and tranquility of people in the neighboring cities.” .” Nicolás Maduro congratulated him on television while the fact-finding mission presented its fourth report to the United Nations this Wednesday in Geneva, in which it denounces, among other things, the violations, the persecution of dissidents, torture and arbitrary detentions, as well as the closure of media, other human rights violations and crimes against humanity continue to be a systematic practice of the state in Venezuela. Although researchers acknowledge that cases have fallen, they warn that “attacks in the civil society sector have increased” and targeted union leaders, activists and press workers more selectively.
After the deployment of 11,000 security officers at the beginning of Wednesday, there have been no reports of deaths, injuries or detainees in Tocorón. Some videos from the scene show how some private huts in the prison, where some of the prisoners lived, were set on fire after several hours of detonations and the mobilization of tanks and armored vehicles from Caracas.
Soldiers sit on the roof of an armored vehicle during this Wednesday’s intervention. Ariana Cubillos (AP)
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