
(DailyVantage.com) – A violent Venezuelan gang that the US Treasury Department sanctioned last month is believed to be behind a series of violent crimes, including kidnapping and extortion, throughout Latin America and the United States.
The US offered a $12 million reward for information that would lead to the arrest of three leaders of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua (TDA), which has joined the list of transnational criminal gangs banned from doing business in the United States.
In sanctioning the gang in early July, the Treasury Department described TDA as posing a “deadly criminal threat” throughout Latin America and the United States, often preying on migrant girls and women whom it forces into trafficking.
In an interview with Fox News last week, Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales described TDA as “MS-13 on steroids.” He said the gang, which originated over a decade ago in an infamous Venezuelan prison known for its violent inmates, has become more organized over the last decade and has expanded into the US.
According to the Treasury Department, those who seek to escape TDA’s grasp are often killed and their bodies are publicly displayed as a warning to others.
The group expanded into Latin America and the United States in recent years as millions of Venezuelans fled the rule of President Nicolás Maduro.
Officials in Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru, where large groups of Venezuelan migrants have traveled, accuse TDA of being behind a series of violent crimes in the region. The group was initially focused on exploiting the fleeing Venezuelans through human trafficking, loan sharking, and forced smuggling of contraband in and out of Venezuela. But as more Venezuelans settle in the US, members of TDA have joined them.
In January, the Venezuelan government stopped accepting deportation flights from the United States after the Biden administration reimposed economic sanctions on the Maduro government.
Rep. Gonzales told Fox News that Venezuela was effectively giving the gang a “one-way trip” into the US.
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