Four criminal gangs mobilize war material with a view to staging acts of political violence during the days prior to the inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro, according to reports.
The data on this frenetic mobilization are obtained from reports that specify different police and military procedures with seizures of weapons, ammunition and arrests of members of the Tren del Llano, El Oso, Yeiko Masacre and El Menor.
These groups, specifically, operate in Guárico, Zulia and Barinas. They continue their criminal routine such as charging for vaccines, extortion and vehicle hijacking, among others. But it is presumed that they were recruited before the presidential elections to activate violence in their traditional areas of operation.
The Tren del Llano, for example, has a presence in four of the 15 municipalities of Guárico: José Tadeo Monagas (Altagracia de Orituco), Leonardo Infante (Valle de la Pascua), José Félix Rivas (Tucupido) and Pedro Zaraza (Zaraza), according to reports from the National Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Command (Conas) No. 34.
In localities of these municipalities, acts of violence were recorded after the presidential elections, such as what occurred in El Remanso, a sector located at the entrance to Valle de la Pascua, where a cell of five boys who carried long weapons dedicated themselves to intimidating the neighbors, according to videos posted by themselves.
In San Francisco de Macaira, members of the leadership of the Tren del Llano, led by Oscar de Jesús Noguera Hernández (El Diente), surrounded an educational institution where there were 15 soldiers from the Plan República, whom they ordered to hand over their weapons and radios. transmitters.
The military repelled the attack until the subjects withdrew, according to reports. Parallel to this, other members of the Tren del Llano proceeded to burn the offices of the Altagracia de Orituco mayor’s office, actions that were recorded and disseminated on the social networks of alias El Diente. That same character recorded several videos, directed at the Bolivarian National Armed Forces so that they would entrench themselves in their commands.
In Zaraza, a group of hooded and motorized men attacked the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Guard command, as captured on the cameras arranged in front of that military establishment and by passersby.
Several of those who participated in this violence were arrested and when an examination was carried out on their cell phones, the plans they had to foment sources of violence in that Guariqueña population were detected. One of those actions was to burn down the house of Mayor Carlos Castillo, according to investigations.
Along with these actions, the cell commanded by Yohani Machuca (El Pepón) did its work in sectors of Zaraza where it allegedly dedicated itself to buying votes for the candidacy of Edmundo González, according to reports. Alias El Pepón and seven of his group were killed during Operation Zaraza 2024, deployed at the beginning of last August by military and police forces.
In the last few hours, security agencies have carried out procedures with the arrest of members of the Tren del Llano who possessed weapons or ammunition (see box).
The weapons of Zulia.
Also in Zulia, criminal groups have been moving weapons and ammunition, as reported since last August by the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello Rondón.
Three days ago Últimas Noticias reported the seizure of 20 firearms in the Los Olivos sector of Maracaibo (Zulia). Likewise, the presence of weapons, later seized, was reported in Sabanas Altas, Píritu municipality, Falcón state, an area where a group dedicated to preparing drug shipments abroad by sea operates.
These drug trafficking groups have also been allegedly recruited by far-right sectors for political violence plans, according to reports.
In fact, President Nicolás Maduro warned last Friday about the recruitment of criminals who are outside Venezuela to bring them to the country with specific missions, aimed at creating chaos and thus advancing the overthrow of the head of state.
For this reason, Maduro demanded to be prepared “to respond to any internal or external attack, from national or foreign mercenaries, and to any conspiracy.”
Within the framework of these plans, the president revealed that María Corina Machado, who is unaware of the results of the presidential elections, fled the country “and is between Colombia and Panama.”
In the last few hours, Machado was heard saying in an interview that the bases that support Maduro should be “undermined.” The interview was granted to the Argentine television station TN Internacional on October 29, three days before a leader of the PSUV in the municipality of Sucre (Miranda), councilor Pedro Antonio Martínez Sosa, was murdered in Petare, a crime that is attributed to the band founded by Wilexis Acevedo Monasterios (El Wilexis), who has participated from 2019 to the present in acts of political violence, according to videos.
The seizures
- Los Pata de Goma, a dissident group of the National Liberation Army, an expression of the Colombian internal conflict, operate in Barrancas del Orinoco (Monagas). In the San Rafael sector, of that Monaco town, GNB agents seized a 12-gauge shotgun, which Diosnel Josué Ynfante Baesa was carrying.
- In the Guaiqueríes sector, José Tadeo Monagas municipality (Altagracia de Orituco), Guárico, they seized 49 cartridges that fit in rifles, which were transported on a motorcycle driven by Alexi Alejandro Garrido Farías (El Chagüí), a member of the Structured Organized Crime Group Tren Del Llano, according to a report from the National Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Command (Conas).
- In the Ciudad Tavacare Housing Complex, Barinas municipality, Barinas state, a 22 mm caliber pistol was seized, which was possessed by members of the El Menor gang: Dalwer José Méndez, Carlos Alberto Fernández Espinoza and a minor, according to a report from the Detachment 331 of the GNB.
- On the main road of Mecocal, Miranda municipality (Los Puertos de Altagracia), Zulia, GNB officials seized a 380 pistol, two pistol magazines and 11 cartridges of different calibers, including 9 intended for rifles. The material was in the hands of Ramón Jesús Zambrano Urdaneta, a member of the band El Oso, led by Oswaldo José Nava.
- Also in Zulia, but in Santa Rita, the military seized a 12 shotgun, carried by Julio César Márquez, a member of the gang founded by Erck Parra (Yeico Masacre).
