In a high-intensity deployment carried out in the last hours of 2025, State security forces dismantled a key cell of the criminal group Llano Train. During the operation, he was killed Manuel Alejandro Moyetones Castillo, alias Mandarriaidentified by the authorities as the lieutenant and second in command of this criminal structure.
The confrontation took place on December 31 in a rural area of the Sosa parish, Julián Mellado municipality, in the Guárico state. According to the official report of the Ministry of the Interior, Justice and Peace, a mixed commission was ambushed by armed individuals while carrying out field intelligence work, which unleashed an intense shootout in which no casualties or injuries were reported by the officials.
Details of the operation and criminals killed
The operation was carried out by a Rapid Reaction Unit (URRA)made up of officials from the GNB (CONAS), SEBIN, GOES and the Bolivarian National Police. Along with alias Mandarria, three other alleged criminals were killed:
- Daniel Alejandro Maluenga López: Founding member of the “El Chachi” faction in El Sombrero.
- José Sulbarán Ledezma, alias El Pólvoro.
- a fourth man which still remains unidentified.
At the scene of the event, authorities seized a war arsenal that included two AK103 rifles, a FAL, a submachine gun and fragmentary grenadesin addition to satellite communication equipment and power plants that showed the level of logistics of the cell in the rural area.
The profile of alias Mandarria
Moyetones Castillo was a strategic piece for Oscar de Jesús Noguera Hernández, alias El Pipecurrent maximum leader of the Tren del Llano. “Mandarria” had a long criminal history that included an escape from the Tocorón prison in 2014. His main function was systematic extortion and the collection of “vaccines” to agricultural producers in the states of Guárico, Aragua and Anzoátegui, suffocating the local economy of the plains region.
Operation Zaraza
This coup is part of the Operation Zarazaa strategic plan initiated in 2024 with the objective of dismantling the remaining factions of the Tren del Llano. This organization, which originated in 2006 and achieved notoriety under the command of the now deceased “El Picure”, has fragmented in recent years, extending its tentacles towards drug trafficking and territorial control in the east of the country.
With the fall of its second in command, the “El Pipe” structure suffers a significant operational loss in its historical area of influence, while the authorities maintain their deployment in the Guárico state to locate the rest of the criminal leadership.
