“Texas will use the courts to stop their (Aragua Train) activities, use civil asset forfeiture to seize their property (…) and harsher criminal penalties to keep them in jail,” the governor said.
The Governor of Texas (United States), Greg Abbottannounced on Monday, September 16, the start of an operation against the criminal gang Tren de Aragua, of Venezuelan origin, and designated the group as a foreign terrorist organization.
At a press conference in Houston, the most populous city in Texas, he said the gang poses a “dangerous and deadly” threat to the state.
“Texas will use the courts to stop their (Aragua Train) activities, use civil asset forfeiture to seize their property (…) and harsher criminal penalties to keep them in jail,” the governor said when announcing the measures.
The governor ordered the creation of a unit within the state Department of Public Security dedicated to the Aragua Train and staffed by “hundreds” of law enforcement officers.
This announcement comes less than two months before the presidential elections on November 5, in which Republicans have resorted to xenophobic rhetoric to criticize President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Republican leaders, including former president and candidate Donald Trump (2017-2021), have linked the presence of members of this gang in the US with the thousands of Venezuelan migrants who have arrived at the southern border fleeing the deep crisis that the South American country is going through.
One of the main criminal activities of the Aragua Train, which originated in a prison 130 kilometers from Caracas and has expanded to other countries in the region, is precisely the extortion and sexual exploitation of Venezuelan migrants.
The Texas governor, who is hoping to solidify his control of the state legislature after the November elections, is one of the leading critics of the Democratic government and has spent millions of dollars to “impede” the entry of migrants across the border with Mexico.
More than a dozen people who authorities have linked to the Aragua Train have been charged with committing crimes in several states across the country, including Texas, Georgia, Florida and New York.
One of the most high-profile cases has been the murder of a 22-year-old woman named Laken Riley by José Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan identified by authorities in the state as a member of the criminal organization.
Federal authorities have not released official figures on the presence of this gang in the United States, but according to leaks to The Wall Street Journal, there are more than 1,000 open investigations in the country involving “alleged” members.
Last July, the Treasury Department classified the Tren de Aragua as a “transnational criminal organization” and the State Department said its network had “extended” from South America to the United States.
This gang has recently entered the national media spotlight after Trump and other Republican politicians spread false information claiming that members of the Tren de Aragua had taken control of an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado.
Police in the Denver metropolitan area of Colorado denied the report, but acknowledged that the criminal organization does have a presence in the area.
With information from EFE
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