A founder of the criminal organization of Venezuelan origin Tren de Aragua offered the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to begin peace talks that would lead to the demobilization of the band, according to a letter whose veracity was confirmed to AFP by the office of the Peace Commissioner.
Larry Álvarez, alias Larry Changa, sent the document to the president, the Ministry of Justice and the High Commissioner for Peace in his capacity as “founder” of the organization, which was born within the Venezuelan prison of Aragua, known as Tocorón.
Álvarez was captured in Colombia last year and remains in a Bogotá prison.
In the letter, Álvarez asks to be named “Peace Manager, in order to facilitate rapprochements and build a viable demobilization route“, according to the document signed by his lawyers and released this Saturday on social networks and local media.
The Aragua Train is present in about eight countries in the region. In July 2024, the United States designated it “as a major transnational criminal organization”, which implies the blocking of all its assets in that country.
The letter too includes a request for “temporary suspension” of the Álvarez’s extradition process as the parties explore an eventual peace dialogue.
Last August the Colombian Supreme Court accepted his extradition to Chile, where he has open proceedings for terrorism, arms trafficking, extortion and kidnapping.
The leftist Petro, in power since 2022, advocates a policy of “total peace” that seeks to extinguish the armed conflict that continued in Colombia after the agreement with the extinct FARC guerrilla in 2016.
The talks proposed by the Petro government have not progressed with the bulk of the National Liberation Army (ELN), with the Clan del Golfo cartel or with the Central General Staff, the largest dissident of the FARC.
Experts maintain that since the beginning of Petro’s mandate, armed groups, financed by drug trafficking, have grown stronger.
The historic Colombian conflict that has pitted guerrillas, state forces and paramilitaries leaves some 9.9 million victims, most of them displaced.
