Salvatore Mancuso, alias “El Mono” or “Santander Lozada,” is a former Colombian paramilitary commander who was part of the Peasant Self Defence Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá – ACCU) and the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC). In February 2024, after serving more than 15 years for drug trafficking in the United States, he returned to Colombia, where he was appointed a peace manager as part of President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” initiative. 

History

Salvatore Mancuso Gómez was born on August 17, 1964, in Montería, a city in the department of Córdoba in northern Colombia. Born to an Italian father and a Colombian mother, Mancuso studied civil engineering and agricultural administration at university. 

In the early 1990s, Mancuso became the administrator of several cattle ranches and was extorted by the Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación – EPL), a guerrilla movement. From this point, he began to collaborate as an informant for the Colombian army in the department of Códoba to help their fight against the EPL. 

His work with the army became known to brothers Carlos and Vincente Castaño, the main leaders of the ACCU, a paramilitary movement that sought to combat the expansion of the guerrillas in that area of Colombia. Mancuso joined the ACCU in 1994, where he was initially in charge of networking with local and regional politicians. 

In 1995, he created the Nuevo Horizonte Surveillance and Security Cooperative in the municipality of Tierralta, Córdoba. The legal basis for the Cooperative came from a 1994 Colombian government decree, allowing the creation of civilian groups to collaborate with military forces in matters of security and public order. Through the Nuevo Horizonte Cooperative, and other cooperatives created by ACCU members, the paramilitaries were able to gain access to arms and resources and strengthen their political and military networks.

Beginning in 1996, Mancuso led the ACCU’s expansion into northern Colombia, specifically in the departments of Sucre, Bolívar, Cesar, Magdalena, La Guajira, and Atlántico. For this, he made use of alliances with political, economic, and military elites that made it possible for the paramilitaries to enter these areas. 

In 1997, the Castaño brothers created the AUC, a federation of different self-defense movements with a presence in a wide range of places in Colombia. Mancuso became a member of what was known as the AUC General Staff, and in 1999 he led the AUC’s entry into the department of Norte de Santander through the Catatumbo Bloc. 

After the resignation of Carlos Castaño as commander general of the AUC in 2001, Mancuso assumed an even more prominent role within the organization. From 2002 onwards, he accompanied the dialogue process between the AUC and the Colombian government, and subsequently, the demobilization process of the paramilitary blocs between 2003 and 2006. 

Mancuso demobilized in December 2004. In May 2008, he was extradited to the United States for drug trafficking crimes, along with 12 other paramilitary leaders. In October 2008, he made a plea agreement with US prosecutors and was sentenced to 15 years and one month in prison. The agreement recognized the time Mancuso spent in jail in Colombia, helping to shorten his sentence. 

Mancuso finished his sentence in the United States in March 2020 but was not released immediately. Instead, he was put in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while his immigration status was being resolved. Although he asked to be deported to Italy, where he is a citizen, the Colombian government requested his extradition to serve outstanding sentences in the ordinary and transitional Justice and Peace courts. 

While serving time in the United States, Mancuso had in 2018 requested to be included in the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz – JEP), a transitional tribunal created in Colombia to judge the acts committed by former combatants of the demobilized guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC). His request was based on his having been a third-party collaborator or financier of paramilitarism between 1989 and 1997. By being accepted into the JEP, Mancuso would be eligible for transitional benefits within the framework of the judicial proceedings against him, should he be extradited to Colombia. 

However, in 2020 the JEP denied his request, stating that Mancuso had not been a civilian or a third party to paramilitary groups, but that, on the contrary, he was part of the armed structure of the organization. In November 2023, Mancuso’s legal team appealed the decision. The JEP accepted Mancuso’s submission to the court, arguing his role was being a hinge between politicians, military, and businessmen and the paramilitary groups.

In February 2024, almost four years after he had finished his sentence in the United States, Mancuso returned to Colombia. 

Criminal Activity

Drug trafficking was a key activity that marked Mancuso’s time with the AUC. According to the US government court documents, Mancuso, together with other paramilitary leaders, was behind the shipment of several tons of cocaine from Colombia to the United States via ports in Central America and the Caribbean. The Italian justice system has also carried out investigations against him for drug trafficking. 

While serving his sentence in the United States, Mancuso was convicted in Colombia by the Justice and Peace courts, the transitional justice mechanism created in the legal framework of paramilitary demobilization, for the thousands of criminal acts he committed during his time as an AUC commander. These included homicides, displacements, forced disappearances, recruitment of minors, and torture, among others. 

In Colombia, Mancuso is currently under investigation for money laundering associated with drug trafficking.

Geography

Mancuso had influence in northern Colombia, specifically in the departments of Córdoba, Sucre, Bolivar, Atlántico, Magdalena, Cesar, La Guajira, Norte de Santander, and some municipalities in the department of Antioquia. He oversaw massacres in these regions. 

Allies and Enemies

During his time with the ACCU and the AUC, Mancuso directly confronted Colombian guerrillas, mainly the EPL, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and the FARC, in the different areas of the country. 

While he was part of the AUC, Mancuso, an Italian citizen, had links to the Italian ‘Ndrangheta mafia. 

He also had networks for laundering drug money. One of the best known was with Italian businessman Giorgio Sale, who through his businesses, laundered drug money for the AUC. Mancuso also allegedly laundered money through the gambling business of Enilse Lopez, alias “La Gata,” a businesswoman from the Caribbean coast who had close ties to paramilitary groups in northern Colombia. 

Mancuso also weaved a web of connections with politicians, military officials, and businessmen that allowed the paramilitary expansion into different parts of the country. In the different hearings he has held before the Colombian justice system, he has mentioned high-ranking military officers, former presidential candidates, ex-presidents, and multinational banana and coal companies, who allegedly collaborated with paramilitary groups in Colombia. 

Prospects

In August 2023, Mancuso was appointed peace manager in the framework of Total Peace, the project through which the government seeks to conduct negotiations with different armed criminal groups. As peace manager, Mancuso could facilitate dialogue with different armed groups, including those started after the demobilization of the AUC.

However, Mancuso’s appointment has generated debate, with some jurists believing that it is not clear what role Mancuso can play as a peace manager, considering that he demobilized almost 20 years ago. 

On July 10, 2024, Mancuso left La Picota prison in Bogotá – where he had been held since February – following a court order. He is expected to begin his work as a peace manager and contribute to clarifying the truth of paramilitarism in the country.

The post Salvatore Mancuso appeared first on InSight Crime.

Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño” Guerrero,” is the main leader of Tren de Aragua, the most important criminal group in Venezuela. The organization’s expansion and transnational reach in different Latin American countries has positioned Niño Guerrero as one of the most renowned prison leaders, also known as pranes, in the region.

Since the Venezuelan government intervention in the Tocorón prison, the former criminal stronghold of Tren de Aragua, Niño Guerrero’s whereabouts are unknown.

Despite losing his center of operations in Venezuela, Niño Guerrero is at large and continues to direct Tren de Aragua’s operations. Thanks to the group’s transnational presence, his criminal reputation has grown significantly. With an Interpol red notice and the US State Department offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest in July 2024, he has become one of the most wanted criminals in South America.

History

Niño Guerrero was born on December 2, 1983, in Maracay, Aragua state, a municipality just over a hundred kilometers from Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. Around the year 2000, Guerrero entered the local criminal scene, attacking police officers and getting involved in micro-trafficking businesses.

According to Venezuelan Supreme Court records from September 3, 2005, Niño Guerrero killed an Aragua police officer, which put him on the radar of the authorities. By that time, Tren de Aragua already had a criminal reputation for kidnapping and extorting businessmen and bribing public officials.

In 2010, authorities captured Niño Guerrero while he was dealing stolen goods and trafficking drugs in his native Maracay. By this point, Guerrero has three murder charges to his name. As a result, he was imprisoned in the Aragua penitentiary, also known as Tocorón, until 2012, when he escaped.

In June 2013, Niño Guerrero was recaptured in Barquisimeto, Lara state, where for months he had been robbing homes. From here, his criminal career began rising.

Despite being imprisoned, Niño Guerrero appeared in 2015 at a party in one of the many neighborhoods of Maracay under Tren de Aragua’s control. At the party, he introduced himself as the group’s leader and promised that he would improve living conditions for local residents.

A year later, Niño Guerrero appeared in court in Maracay, where he was charged with several murders, multiple residential robberies, carrying weapons, drug trafficking, and the escape from Tocorón. In February 2018, Guerrero accepted the crimes he was charged with and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

But this conviction did not diminish the power of Niño Guerrero or Tren de Aragua. The prison-based organization continued its expansion within Venezuela, and by 2020, the group was estimated to have around 1,000 members answering to Niño Guerrero’s orders.

From inside Tocorón, Niño Guerrero built a center of operations filled with luxurious accommodations. For starters, he lived in a two-story house inside the prison, where he received any visitors he wanted. He also had access to a swimming pool, baseball field, discotheque, restaurants, and even a zoo.

Today, Tren de Aragua’s power extends across Venezuela, where it controls gold mines in the state of Bolívar, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast, and part of the clandestine border crossings, also known as trochas, through which thousands of migrants cross the border with Colombia. But the group has also positioned in countries are the region such as Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia.

On September 20, 2023, Venezuelan authorities launched a large-scale security operation inside Tocorón prison. At least 11,000 police and military personnel entered the prison. But they failed to find Guerrero and the group’s leaders. Sources interviewed in Aragua claim that Tren de Aragua’s leaders had negotiated with the government and agreed on an escape plan days before the prison takeover.

Criminal Activities

The most important criminal economies that Niño Guerrero controls, whether through Tren de Aragua factions or under his direct supervision, include extortion, kidnapping, drug trafficking, contract killings, car theft, and migrant smuggling and human trafficking.

The group’s criminal portfolio extends to their control of extortion rackets, migrant smuggling, and human trafficking in Peru, Chile, and Colombia. Their incursion into these criminal businesses has also been responsible for the deterioration of security and increase in homicides in these countries.

With the loss of Tocorón, Niño Guerrero also stopped receiving important criminal revenues. The prison population was obliged to contribute to the “cause” via a prison tax that ranged from $10 to $15 each week or month, depending on the benefits received. 

Beyond the prison walls, in the different neighborhoods of Maracay in Aragua, the gang still exercises criminal governance and enforces curfews, engages in vehicle theft, and receives extortion payments from merchants and local inhabitants.

Police sources investigating the Tren de Aragua in Chile and Peru claim that a portion of the criminal income the organization receives abroad ends up in Guerrero’s pockets. This is made possible through remittances and bank transfers of small sums to avoid alerting the financial authorities.

Geography

Niño Guerrero concentrated much of his power in the territorial control he exercises in central Venezuela, especially in the state of Aragua. To date, the reach of the Tren de Aragua has extended to the states of Lara, Trujillo, Sucre, Miranda, Guárico, Carabobo and Bolívar.  

Added to this is the rapid and wide-ranging international expansion of the gang. In Colombia, the group has appeared in Bogotá, the country’s capital, where it fought with local gangs for control over micro-trafficking and zones where forced prostitution takes place. The group has also established itself in key migration points such as Cúcuta, a city that shares a border with Venezuela.

In Chile and Peru, transnational cells have followed the path of Venezuelan migrants, preying on their vulnerabilities through extortion and sexual exploitation. Something similar has happened in Ecuador, where members of the Tren de Aragua have camouflaged themselves with the recently arrived Venezuelan migrants, whom they have begun to extort to allow them to enter the country.

Although US and Colombian authorities believe Guerrero is hiding out in Colombia, Venezuelan security officials consulted by InSight Crime say that after leaving Tocorón he found refuge in the mining area of Las Claritas, in the municipality of Sifontes, Bolívar state, where he is protected by Yohan José Romero, alias “Johan Petrica,” one of the main leaders of the Tren de Aragua.

Allies and Enemies

In addition to the support that Niño Guerrero receives from Petrica in the Bolívar mining fields, the leadership of the Tren de Aragua also includes Larry Amaury Álvarez, alias “Larry Changa,” who migrated to Chile in 2018, and is believed to have helped coordinate the group’s international expansion prior to his arrest in Colombia in July 2024.

Below the main leaders are the lieutenants, locally known as “luceros.” In this list of Guerrero’s subordinates and trusted men, Wilmer Perez Castillo, alias “Wilmer Guayabal”, José Santana, alias “Santanita”, José Alvarado, alias “Goyo Chevrolet”, and a man identified as Kleiverson or alias “Flipper” who manages part of the group’s operations through campaigns in the Somos el Barrio JK Foundation, a pseudo-social community organization, stand out. 

Niño Guerrero also has several local satellite gangs that serve as an alternative source of members and resources. One example is Flipper’s gang, the Las Veras gang, led by the late “Carlos Conejo”, the Coty gang, and the El Asdrubal gang, among others.

The gang’s criminal rivalries vary from country to country. In Bogotá, authorities have reported on the Tren de Aragua’s clashes with different criminal gangs for control of drug trafficking. In Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, local media reported in 2021 that the group clashed with the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), the last guerrilla group standing in the western hemisphere.

In March 2024, Niño’s brother, Gerso Isaac Guerrero Flores, was arrested in Barcelona, Spain. Although his activities on European soil are unknown, Venezuelan authorities secured his extradition from Spain in July 2024 to face charges related to his involvement and important role in the Tren de Aragua.

Prospects

While Niño Guerrero lost his center of operations after the Tocorón intervention, the national and international operations of the Tren de Aragua appear to remain intact. The rapid adaptation shown by its members abroad and the diversification of its business, allowed in part the fall of Tocorón to become a symbolic loss rather than a structural blow.

However, despite the accelerated growth of the gang in the region, Guerrero’s inability to cross borders easily due to his high profile could result in the loss of influence over gang members abroad, leading to future structural fragmentation.

The post Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias ‘Niño Guerrero’ appeared first on InSight Crime.

Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful homegrown criminal actor and the only Venezuelan gang that has successfully projected its power abroad. It has grown from a prison gang limited to the state of Aragua, to a transnational threat with a wide criminal portfolio.

This transnational expansion came on the backs of Venezuelan migrants fleeing the country. From Tocorón prison in Aragua, the gang oversaw and profited from cells established in at least three other South American countries. However, in September 2023, 11,000 Venezuelan police and military personnel, backed by armored vehicles, stormed Tocorón to seemingly take control of what had been Tren de Aragua’s center of operations. Despite the blow of losing Tocorón, the gang’s leadership escaped, and its transnational cells continue to operate.

Tren de Aragua’s expansion to Colombia, Peru, and Chile has, in certain cases, upended local criminal landscapes and attracted significant attention from the authorities within these countries and across the region. Concern among some lawmakers in the United States about the group’s potential expansion there led the country’s Treasury Department to sanction Tren de Aragua as a transnational criminal organization in July 2024. Additionally, the US State Department has offered  $12 million in rewards for information leading to the arrests of three of its main leaders.

History

Tren de Aragua was born in the Tocorón prison in the state of Aragua. The group’s name, which roughly translates to the Aragua Train, may have originated from a labor union working on a railway project through the state which was never finished.

Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero,” turned Tren de Aragua into what it is today during his imprisonment in Tocorón.

Under Niño Guerrero’s leadership, Tocorón became one of the country’s most notorious prisons, in large part due to the Venezuelan government’s unofficial policy of handing control of some prisons, including Tocorón, over to crime bosses known as pranes. This freedom and the gang’s criminal income allowed for the construction of a zoo, swimming pool, playground, restaurant, and nightclub within the prison.

With the gang’s control firmly cemented within the prison, Tren de Aragua began expanding its influence. It started with the nearby San Vicente neighborhood, where it established strict social control and even received resources and support from the government via its charitable wing known as “Fundación Somos El Barrio JK.”

Some criminal gangs already operating in Aragua established non-aggression pacts with the gang, among them Tren del Llano. However, after Tren del Llano’s leader was killed in 2016, Tren de Aragua took over its territories in Aragua and part of Guárico state, according to police sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of their safety.

In the years that followed, the gang expanded its network to other states in Venezuela through alliances with smaller gangs, eventually building a presence in at least five other states. During this process, it expanded its criminal portfolio in Venezuela to include extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, migrant smuggling, contraband, illegal mining, retail drug trafficking, cybercrime, and theft.

Tren de Aragua’s expansion turned transnational around 2018, when the gang attempted to establish itself on the Venezuela-Colombia border between the Venezuelan state of Táchira and the Colombian department of Norte de Santander. There, it clashed with major Colombian criminal groups, including the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and the Gaitanistas (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC). The groups fought for control of clandestine border crossings, known as trochas, which are home to a variety of criminal economies, including the smuggling of drugs, contraband, and migrants.

Tren de Aragua carved out a niche for itself in the Colombian border town of La Parada, where many Venezuelan migrants fleeing their country first arrive in Colombia. At this point, the Venezuelan exodus was in full swing, and Tren de Aragua saw an opportunity in the desperation of its compatriots. While larger Colombian groups focused on drug trafficking, Tren de Aragua began to exploit Venezuelan migrants systematically, charging them extortion fees, smuggling them into and throughout Colombia, and taking control of various nodes of the human trafficking for sexual exploitation market.

Between 2018 and 2023, Tren de Aragua built a transnational criminal network, setting up cells in Colombia, Peru, and Chile, with further reports of a sporadic presence in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil.

The group expanded following Venezuelan migration flows, initially staying under the radar by only targeting Venezuelan migrants as it increased its presence in border crossings and urban areas where Venezuelan migrants congregate.

As cells became more established, they moved into local criminal economies, employing eye-catching, targeted violence to force out local gangs and establish themselves as a serious threat. In addition to extortion and migrant smuggling, Tren de Aragua cells abroad control loan sharking (also referred to as gota a gota, or “drop by drop”), retail drug trafficking, kidnapping, small-scale international drug trafficking, human trafficking, and robberies. Each cell specializes in different activities, based on local conditions.

However, as the gang’s use of violence abroad has rung regional alarm bells, authorities across South America now have Tren de Aragua firmly in their crosshairs. Venezuela’s government finally retook control of Tocorón in September 2023, depriving the gang of its historic stronghold, while security forces in Chile, Peru, and Colombia have carried out “mega-operations” targeting the gang since 2022.

Leadership

The head of the gang is Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero,” who led the group from Tocorón prison until September 2023. He escaped before the operation, with Venezuelan civil society reporting that he was warned ahead of time. His location remains unknown.

Guerrero started his criminal career in 2005, when he murdered a police officer in Aragua, according to records from Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice. He was first imprisoned in Tocorón in 2010 but escaped two years later. 

His recapture and return to Tocorón in 2013 led Guerrero to consolidate Tren de Aragua alongside other criminals, who became his most trusted lieutenants. These included Larry Amaury Álvarez, alias “Larry Changa,” and Yohan José Guerrero, alias “Johan Petrica.”

Álvarez escaped Tocorón in 2015 and migrated to Chile in 2018, where he led the expansion of the Tren de Aragua’s faction there. In 2022, as the Chilean police began to investigate him, he fled to Colombia, from where he continued leading the faction’s operations in Chile and planned the group’s expansion in Colombia. Álvarez was arrested in July 2024 in the Colombian department of Quindío. 

For his part, Johan Petrica has been accused of leading a powerful illegal gold mining gang in Las Claritas, in the south of Bolívar state, known as the Las Claritas Sindicato. Some reports suggest that Niño Guerrero may be hiding with Petrica in Las Claritas following the invasion of Tocorón.

Along with offering rewards for information leading to the capture of Niño Guerrero and Johan Petrica, the US State Department offered a $3 million reward for information regarding Giovanny San Vicente, alias “Giovanny” or “El Viejo,” in July 2024, and named him as one of the group’s three leaders. US intelligence officials believe both Niño Guerrero and Giovanny are hiding out in Colombia.

Reports from security forces in Peru, Chile, and Colombia suggest that despite the geographic spread of the gang, it has maintained a hierarchical structure, with Niño Guerrero calling the shots. Judicial documents show how several Tren de Aragua lieutenants have been dispatched to cells across the region, some of whom even appear to rotate between cells in multiple countries.

Geography

Tren de Aragua’s operations center was previously located in Tocorón prison, in the state of Aragua. The gang is also present in at least five other Venezuelan states: Carabobo, Sucre, Bolívar, Guárico, and Lara.

It remains unclear where the group’s new nucleus will be following the September 2023 invasion of Tocorón. However, there is no indication that the gang has stopped operating in Venezuela.

Outside of Venezuela, Tren de Aragua has established permanent cells in Colombia, Peru, and Chile, with reports of its activities in Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia. 

These activities are often concentrated in border areas with clandestine border crossings regularly used by Venezuelan migrants, such as the Venezuela-Colombia border between Táchira and Norte de Santander, the Peru-Chile border, and the Bolivia-Chile border. The gang has also established cells in urban zones with large Venezuelan migrant populations, including Bogotá, Colombia; Lima, Peru; and Santiago, Chile.

Allies and Enemies

Tren de Aragua maintains numerous links with organized crime and prison-based groups, both in Venezuela and in other countries, with which it has established pacts of non-aggression and even alliances to share criminal income. One such prison gang was located in the Trujillo Judicial Confinement Center, dominated by Álvaro Enrique Montilla Briceño, alias “El Loro.” This prison was taken over by security forces just over a month after officials stormed Tocorón.

In addition, Tren de Aragua allegedly recruited and financed a small criminal gang in Lara state, called the “El Santanita” gang, to commit kidnappings and extortion.

A 2021 report from Brazil stated that Tren de Aragua members had been jailed in the northern state of Roraima, near Venezuela, and were working with Brazil’s largest criminal group, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC), claims repeated by a 2022 academic investigation, although the exact nature of this relationship remains unclear.

Tren de Aragua has clashed with multiple groups, including the ELN, for control of border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia.  Local officials and security forces across the region have highlighted the gang’s willingness to use targeted violence to force out local gangs.

The gang’s relationship with Venezuelan security forces and government officials has been complex. On the one hand, multiple sources interviewed by InSight Crime have pointed out that the group has corrupted local and regional officials. Its growth was also driven by the state’s unofficial devolution of power to the pranes and the impunity it enjoyed within Tocorón. Even following the government invasion of Tocorón, its relationship with officials remains murky. It has lost its stronghold, but appears to have received advanced warning, and no high-ranking gang members were captured.

Prospects

Tren de Aragua’s expansion across South America was the first time a Venezuelan gang managed to project itself internationally. It has become a threat to regional security, and dismantling it will not be easy.

However, its international spread appears to have slowed, and the loss of its operational base in Tocorón prison could disrupt its transnational operations. What’s more, security forces across the region are pumping resources into targeting the gang’s cells, with over 100 alleged members arrested in 2022 and 2023 by Peruvian, Chilean, and Colombian officials. These arrests, while weakening the gang outside of prison, have the potential to bring the group back to its roots and spread through foreign prisons.

The mass migration that allowed for Tren de Aragua’s expansion is also slowing and evolving. There was little criminal infrastructure in South America prepared for the number of Venezuelan migrants who traveled across the continent between 2018 and 2022, allowing Tren de Aragua to step in and claim the lion’s share of the profits.

Now, however, Venezuelans are increasingly traveling north to the United States, crossing through Colombia and Central America. This is decreasing the migrant-centered income in Tren de Aragua’s existing territory. With human smuggling and trafficking along the northern route already controlled by powerful gangs, Tren de Aragua is not likely to be able to expand north as easily as it did in South America.

Reports of new cells continue to surface in South America, although officials suggest that many of these are copycat groups seeking to take advantage of Tren de Aragua’s notoriety. It remains to be seen whether Tren de Aragua will maintain its existing network, continue to grow, or if it will fall into decline.

The post Tren de Aragua appeared first on InSight Crime.

Operation Trueno began on the night of April 20, 2022, when around 800 police and military officials traveling in 30 cars and 10 armored vehicles descended on the municipality of Altagracia de Orituco in the state of Guárico.

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here.

The security forces set up checkpoints throughout town, where they arrested people on spurious charges – or demanded bribes not to. They harassed and extorted local businesses, demanding goods and services with threats.

The officials set up their bases of operations in a local hotel and in houses and ranches seized from people under investigation. There, they brought in sex workers and threw parties that lasted until the early hours of the morning. And they held and tortured detainees.

They were ostensibly going after Tren del Llano, and they drew up a list of targets, but few names were actual members of the criminal group. Instead, they targeted people with familial or social connections to gang members, people who had unwittingly aided or been forced to collaborate with the gang – including their extortion victims – and anyone with a criminal history or who lived in a poor neighborhood.

Units of up to 30 officials, usually with their faces covered and identifications obscured, staged raids of the houses of those on the lists. They had no arrest or search warrants, instead telling people they were acting on a “presidential order.”

The officials often broke down the doors as they entered, then physically and verbally abused whoever they found inside. They hit them, beat them with their guns, tied them up, and threatened to kill them.

In the raids and after, the officials stole everything they could find – cash, cell phones, electronic devices, clothing, and vehicles. They even took food, and on some occasions, cooked up meals for themselves during the raids.

Those detained faced cruel and degrading treatment, suffering physical and mental abuse. Some were taken to clandestine torture centers.

Some of the women detained were subjected to sexual violence and humiliation.

The detentions were justified with falsified arrest reports and planted evidence, in most cases involving munitions they claimed to have found. Some detainees were forced to give false testimonies.

In some cases, officials demanded bribes running into the thousands of dollars to free the detainees, or to carry out transfers to court hearings or detention centers.

Most of those taken were held in jails in Caracas, four hours from Guárico. They had to pay bribes to get even basic services in the prisons. Their families were expected to provide them with food, but had to bribe officials to be able to visit or even communicate with their loved ones.

Most detainees were hauled in front of anti-terrorism courts. They were not allowed to have their own lawyers, and were instead forcibly represented by public defenders, some of whom demanded money to provide families with information about the cases.

While some victims were released after a few days, others remain incarcerated in inhumane conditions, held in overcrowded facilities without proper food or medical care. Some have been threatened by Tren del Llano as the gang believes the victims have informed on them to get judicial benefits.

When Terror Swept Through Guárico, Venezuela

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here.

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Operation Trueno began on the night of April 20, 2022, when around 800 police and military officials traveling in 30 cars and 10 armored vehicles descended on the municipality of Altagracia de Orituco in the state of Guárico.

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here

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The security forces set up checkpoints throughout town, where they arrested people on spurious charges – or demanded bribes not to. They harassed and extorted local businesses, demanding goods and services with threats.

The officials set up their bases of operations in a local hotel and in houses and ranches seized from people under investigation. There, they brought in sex workers and threw parties that lasted until the early hours of the morning. And they held and tortured detainees.

They were ostensibly going after Tren del Llano, and they drew up a list of targets, but few names were actual members of the criminal group. Instead, they targeted people with familial or social connections to gang members, people who had unwittingly aided or been forced to collaborate with the gang – including their extortion victims – and anyone with a criminal history or who lived in a poor neighborhood.

Units of up to 30 officials, usually with their faces covered and identifications obscured, staged raids of the houses of those on the lists. They had no arrest or search warrants, instead telling people they were acting on a “presidential order.”

The officials often broke down the doors as they entered, then physically and verbally abused whoever they found inside. They hit them, beat them with their guns, tied them up, and threatened to kill them.

In the raids and after, the officials stole everything they could find – cash, cell phones, electronic devices, clothing, and vehicles. They even took food and, on some occasions, cooked up meals for themselves during the raids.

Those detained faced cruel and degrading treatment, suffering physical and mental abuse. Some were taken to clandestine torture centers.

Some of the women detained were subjected to sexual violence and humiliation.

The detentions were justified with falsified arrest reports and planted evidence, in most cases involving munitions they claimed to have found. Some detainees were forced to give false testimonies.

In some cases, officials demanded bribes running into the thousands of dollars to free the detainees, or to carry out transfers to court hearings or detention centers.

Most of those taken were held in jails in Caracas, four hours from Guárico. They had to pay bribes to get even basic services in the prisons. Their families were expected to provide them with food, but had to bribe officials to be able to visit or even communicate with their loved ones.

Most detainees were hauled in front of anti-terrorism courts. They were not allowed to have their own lawyers, and were instead forcibly represented by public defenders, some of whom demanded money to provide families with information about the cases.

While some victims were released after a few days, others remain incarcerated in inhumane conditions, held in overcrowded facilities without proper food or medical care. Some have been threatened by Tren del Llano as the gang believes the victims have informed on them to get judicial benefits.

When Terror Swept Through Guárico, Venezuela

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here.

Explore the series

Read the Stories

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Human Rights Abuses During ‘Operation Trueno’

Read Defiende Venezuela’s full report documenting 34 cases of abuses and human rights violations committed by the security forces during Operation Trueno.

Download the full report (PDF)

Tren del llano profile

Read InSight Crime’s profile of the gang that was the declared target of Operation Trueno.

Tren del Llano

The post The Operation appeared first on InSight Crime.

Carlos is a musician and farm laborer from Altagracia de Orituco. He left to go live in Caracas, but he was in town visiting his family when Operation Trueno began.

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here.

Carlos was out when the police came looking for him at his mother’s house. Officers told his relatives they were there to kill him, and they arrested his sister and mother.

He waited until night then fled Altagracia de Orituco. He walked to the town of Taguay, then caught a bus to Caracas.

Carlos was waiting for a bus to take him to the Colombian border when he was arrested at the bus station in Caracas, even though the officials had no warrant.

The police officers put a hood over Carlos’ head and bundled him into a car. They took him to a beach, where they held his head under water while interrogating him about Tren del Llano. He told them he had nothing to do with the gang.

The police took Carlos to a large house on the outskirts of Caracas, where they tortured him in the basement. The officers hung him from the ceiling by a rope attached to handcuffs behind his back. 

Officers swung him around by pliers jammed into his nose. They used a severed cable to apply electric shocks to his testicles. They suffocated him by placing a hood laced with insecticide over his head. And they pushed a pistol into his ribs and threatened to kill him.

After applying makeup to cover his wounds, the police officers filmed Carlos’ “confession.” They demanded he denounce a wealthy local rancher he had worked for as a Tren del Llano collaborator.

After the torture sessions, Carlos was bound and gagged and chained to the base of a bed. He slept on the floor while the shift guard slept on the bed.

The national police chief announced Carlos’ arrest, labeling him a “highly dangerous member of the Tren del Llano gang.” Only then did his family understand Carlos had been arrested.

Without being able to communicate with his family or a trusted lawyer, Carlos was taken to a court late at night five days after his arrest. He was brought before a specialist terrorism judge and charged with arms trafficking, financing terrorism, and criminal conspiracy. 

Carlos was placed in pretrial detention and moved to a police jail in Caracas, where he was placed in a cell with 81 other people. There, he received a message from Tren del Llano: they knew he was cooperating with the police, so they were going to kill him.

In May 2023, Carlos’ family received a message from Carlos’ Facebook account. It contained a series of images of his case file, along with a voice message saying they would kill Carlos as soon as he was transferred to a common prison.

After multiple deferrals, Carlos’ trial finally began a year and a half after his arrest. While it is by law a public hearing, his family was often barred from entering the courtroom and made to wait outside in the street deep into the night. 

On May 6, 2022, Carlos’ brother recorded a verbal complaint with the Public Ministry’s Office of Attention to Victims in Matters of Protection of Human Rights. On June 22, he then filed a formal complaint with the ministry’s General Directorate for the Protection of Human Rights, denouncing the Carlos’ detention and torture. To date, no action has been taken in the cases.

In 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a resolution recognizing Carlos as a victim of arbitrary detention and stating it considered him to have been subjected to torture in the days following his detention.

Carlos is one of the thousands of victims of security forces abuses documented in Venezuela by human rights organizations.

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When Terror Swept Through Guárico, Venezuela

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here.

Explore the series

Carlos is a musician and farm laborer from Altagracia de Orituco. He left to go live in Caracas, but he was in town visiting his family when Operation Trueno began.

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here

Scroll to continue

Carlos was out when the police came looking for him at his mother’s house. Officers told his relatives they were there to kill him, and they arrested his sister and mother.

He waited until night then fled Altagracia de Orituco. He walked to the town of Taguay, then caught a bus to Caracas.

Carlos was waiting for a bus to take him to the Colombian border when he was arrested at the bus station in Caracas, even though the officials had no warrant.

The police officers put a hood over Carlos’ head and bundled him into a car. They took him to a beach, where they held his head under water while interrogating him about Tren del Llano. He told them he had nothing to do with the gang.

The police took Carlos to a large house on the outskirts of Caracas, where they tortured him in the basement. The officers hung him from the ceiling by a rope attached to handcuffs behind his back. 

Officers swung him around by pliers jammed into his nose. They used a severed cable to apply electric shocks to his testicles. They suffocated him by placing a hood laced with insecticide over his head. And they pushed a pistol into his ribs and threatened to kill him.

After applying makeup to cover his wounds, the police officers filmed Carlos’ “confession.” They demanded he denounce a wealthy local rancher he had worked for as a Tren del Llano collaborator.

After the torture sessions, Carlos was bound and gagged and chained to the base of a bed. He slept on the floor while the shift guard slept on the bed.

The national police chief announced Carlos’ arrest, labeling him a “highly dangerous member of the Tren del Llano gang.” Only then did his family understand Carlos had been arrested.

Without being able to communicate with his family or a trusted lawyer, Carlos was taken to a court late at night five days after his arrest. He was brought before a specialist terrorism judge and charged with arms trafficking, financing terrorism, and criminal conspiracy. 

Carlos was placed in pretrial detention and moved to a police jail in Caracas, where he was placed in a cell with 81 other people. There, he received a message from Tren del Llano: they knew he was cooperating with the police, so they were going to kill him.

In May 2023, Carlos’ family received a message from Carlos’ Facebook account. It contained a series of images of his case file, along with a voice message saying they would kill Carlos as soon as he was transferred to a common prison.

After multiple deferrals, Carlos’ trial finally began a year and a half after his arrest. While it is by law a public hearing, his family was often barred from entering the courtroom and made to wait outside in the street deep into the night. 

On May 6, 2022, Carlos’ brother recorded a verbal complaint with the Public Ministry’s Office of Attention to Victims in Matters of Protection of Human Rights. On June 22, he then filed a formal complaint with the ministry’s General Directorate for the Protection of Human Rights, denouncing the Carlos’ detention and torture. To date, no action has been taken in the cases.

In 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued a resolution recognizing Carlos as a victim of arbitrary detention and stating it considered him to have been subjected to torture in the days following his detention.

Carlos is one of the thousands of victims of security forces abuses documented in Venezuela by human rights organizations.

If you value this work, please consider making a donation.

We want to continue working with local partners to expose crime and corruption and to tell compelling stories. In order to do that we need your support. You can make a single donation or become a regular donor if you wish to support our work.

One-time Monthly Annually

One-time

$5

$15

$50

Other Donation amount

$

Monthly

$10

$25

$100

Other Donation amount

$

Annually

$10

$25

$100

Other Donation amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate Now

When Terror Swept Through Guárico, Venezuela

This story is part of an investigation produced by InSight Crime and the Venezuelan human rights organization Defiende Venezuela that exposes the abuses of the Venezuelan security forces and tells the stories of their victims. Explore these stories and the full human rights report here.

Explore the series

The post Carlos Ramírez appeared first on InSight Crime.

We are thrilled to announce InSight Crime will be honored with a special citation by the Maria Moors Cabot Prize jury for outstanding reporting on the Americas.

The prestigious recognition given by the Columbia Journalism School honors journalists and news organizations for career excellence and coverage of the Western Hemisphere that furthers inter-American understanding. We are honored to be among its many illustrious recipients.

Read the full announcement here.

The post InSight Crime Will Be Honored by the Maria Moors Cabot Prize appeared first on InSight Crime.

On July 2, InSight Crime investigator Victoria Dittmar moderated a roundtable on electoral violence in Mexico hosted by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). 

The conference, which took place in Mexico City in collaboration with various non-governmental organizations, analyzed the historic wave of political violence that marked Mexico’s presidential election last month and evaluated its significance for the future of democracy in the country.  

Read more >

Watch the conference >

The post InSight Crime Investigator Moderates Conference on Electoral Violence in Mexico appeared first on InSight Crime.

InSight Crime was cited in the US government’s sentencing submission against Juan Orlando Hernández. The cited investigation, Murder, Corruption, and Drugs: The Ledgers That Could Sink Honduras’ Ex-President, tells the story of how drug ledgers became key pieces of evidence in the trial of the former Honduran president. 

InSight Crime has provided authoritative coverage of Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of trafficking cocaine while in office and sentenced to 45 years in prison by a US court on Wednesday. 

Read the investigation >

Read our Juan Orlando Hernández profile >

The post InSight Crime Cited in the Sentencing of Juan Orlando Hernández appeared first on InSight Crime.

Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado is Honduras’ former president and a convicted drug trafficker. He is serving a 45-year sentence in the United States after being found guilty of drug trafficking and weapons charges on March 8, 2024. 

Multiple US administrations regarded Hernández as a staunch pro-US ally while he was in power, and provided hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Honduras to strengthen the country’s security forces and fight the so-called war on drugs. But during the trial, the court heard how Hernández subverted Honduras’ state institutions, including the military and the police, and put them at the service of some of the most powerful criminal organizations on the planet.

As head of congress and then president, Hernández was the country’s most powerful political figure for more than two decades, but his tenure was roiled by persistent accusations of corruption among members of his inner circle, including his sister and his brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, who is also imprisoned in the US after being convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said Hernández and his co-conspirators trafficked more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras during his time in the Honduran government. Hernández has repeatedly denied all drug-related accusations and claimed that the witnesses who testified against him at his trial were drug traffickers with a vendetta.

History

Hernández started his political career in his hometown of Gracias, in the western department of Lempira, joining the ranks of the right-wing National Party (Partido Nacional) in the 1990s. He was elected Lempira’s congressman in 1997.   

In 2010, Hernández was elected President of the National Congress, cementing his rise within the ruling party. But as his power grew, he was increasingly dogged by allegations of corruption. During his tenure as head of Congress, the congressionally-controlled Departmental Development Fund misappropriated an estimated $360 million in funds, using them to fill party coffers and finance campaigns. The fund was under the stewardship of Hilda Hernández, Hernández’s sister, who ran Honduras’ Ministry of Social Development and Inclusion.

Hernández was first elected president in 2013. Investigations by the country’s anti-corruption commission later revealed that millions of dollars in embezzled funds were funneled to Hernández’s first presidential campaign.

Hernández won a second term in 2017. His re-election, however, was marred by controversy – including the country’s Supreme Court voiding single term limits for presidents to allow him to run again – and accusations of voter fraud.

At the same time, a wave of traffickers indicted in the United States began to provide testimony that implicated Hernández in receiving bribes. Then in 2018, his brother Tony was arrested on drug charges at a Miami airport. Court documents that came to light in his brother’s case identified Hernández as being a co-conspirator.

His brother’s high-profile trial in 2019 made the then-president the subject of even more damning allegations. During the trial, Alexander Ardón, a former drug trafficker and mayor, testified that Tony had traded protection for Ardón’s operations for a $2 million contribution to his brother’s campaign.

US prosecutors also alleged that former Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” had hand-delivered $1 million to Tony that was meant for the former president.

Prosecutors also spoke of a ledger confiscated from Nery Orlando López, a drug trafficker, that listed $440,000 in payments to “JOH y su gente,” or JOH and his associates. The president is commonly referenced by his initials. López was brutally murdered in prison just one week after Tony’s trial.

Usually loath to name sitting presidents in criminal indictments, US prosecutors continued to allege in various cases and his brother’s sentencing that President Hernández took bribes directly and had participated firsthand in his brother’s drug trafficking scheme. The most explosive allegation came when a witness during the 2021 trial of drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez testified that President Hernández had boasted about deceiving US anti-drug forces.

“We are going to shove the drugs up the noses of the gringos, and they won’t even know it,” the president allegedly said.

Still, Hernández retained his status as a key US partner, willing to accommodate then-President Donald Trump and his crusade to stop migrants from reaching the US-Mexico border. He was also considered an ally in the US’s so-called War on Drugs. As President, he often opined that nobody had done more to dismantle and extradite Honduras’ drug-trafficking groups than himself. 

It was only in 2021, more than a decade after repeated allegations of serious misconduct, that Washington truly began to distance itself from the Hernández administration. In February of that year, eight Democratic senators proposed a sanctions bill, in which they said that Hernández had engaged in a pattern of criminal activities.

By November 2021, voters in Honduras had had enough of Hernández’s ruling National Party. Xiomara Castro won a decisive victory in the presidential election, and speculation soon swirled that Hernández could be indicted by US prosecutors upon leaving office.

Following the loss, Hernández was immediately appointed to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) in a bid for immunity from prosecution.

But just weeks after leaving office, US prosecutors asked for his extradition on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Hernández was detained at his home on February 15, 2022. Police placed him in shackles and a bulletproof vest, a shocking and once unthinkable sight.

Hernández was convicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges on March 8, 2024. A judge later sentenced him to 45 years in prison on June 26, coinciding with the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

Criminal Activities

The US Southern District of New York found Hernández guilty of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and also guilty of two further weapons charges. In a sentencing document, prosecutors described Hernández as “one of the most culpable [defendants] ever prosecuted in the United States.”

The primary way Hernández participated in the cocaine trafficking conspiracy was by using his presidential power to protect the activities of drug traffickers, including his brother Tony Hernández, in exchange for bribes. However, prosecutors also believe that Hernández had at least some involvement in the operation of cocaine laboratories himself and partnered with Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, a prolific former drug trafficker, to run a drug lab in the Northern department of Cortés. 

Hernández’s trial revealed more information about the links between the Hernández National Party and the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2013, former cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” flew to personally deliver a $1 million contribution to Hernández’s winning 2013 presidential campaign. Hernández’s brother, Tony, received the money from El Chapo in the town of El Paraíso, a small town in the Western Highlands of Copán. 

The Sinaloa Cartel also provided a further $2.4 million in campaign contributions to Hernández, some of which was funneled through corrupt port officials. 

Several Honduran trafficking organizations also helped finance Hernández’s campaigns. The largest single donation came from the Valles, who paid $4 million to Hernández’s winning 2013 presidential run. The funds were paid in cash and handed over to Tony Hernández in duffel bags in a gas station outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital. 

Alexander Ardón, the former mayor of El Paraíso, also contributed at least $3.5 million in drug trafficking proceeds to the National Party, according to prosecutors. Ardon worked with Tony Hernández and the Valles to move cocaine across Honduras to El Paraíso, where it was shifted across the border and delivered to Sinaloa Cartel associates. 

As president, Hernández promoted Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla to the post of Chief of the Honduran National Police. Bonilla allegedly worked with Tony and was directly involved in the protection of drug traffickers and their activities. This included direct participation in assassinations and the coordination of drug movements with fearsome criminal groups, including MS13. 

Hernández’s trial relied primarily on testimony from witnesses and convicted drug traffickers. Key pieces of physical evidence were intercepted phone calls, ledgers which recorded bribes paid by drug traffickers to Hernández, and photographs of Hernández with members of the Valle cartel at the 2010 World Cup. Data extracted from the phone of Fuentes Ramirez also revealed that he had made at least two visits to the presidential palace while Hernández was in power.

Several potential witnesses to Hernandez’s crimes were killed before his arrest. Nery López Sanabria, a former trafficker whose narco-ledgers provided a key piece of evidence in the prosecutions of both Tony Hernández and eventually Juan Orlando Hernández, was brutally murdered by gang members in a maximum security prison, just one week after Tony’s conviction. 

Two further witnesses, who allegedly had received copies of security camera footage showing Hernández accepting bribes from Fuentes, were also murdered.

Hernández has repeatedly denied all charges against him and, at his sentencing, described his conviction as a “lynching.”

While he has previously admitted receiving campaign funding from sources known to funnel misappropriated public funds, Hernández has claimed ignorance of the origin of those payments.

Geography

With the protection of the National Party, drug traffickers transformed Honduras into a major thoroughfare for South American cocaine to Mexico and the US.

Western Honduras was the center of power for Hernández and his brother Tony, who was also a National Party congressman. There, Tony began to serve as a political powerbroker with drug trafficking clans. This region remains key for drug-traffickers, who make use of Honduras’ long and porous border with Guatemala.

Both aerial and maritime routes flourished. Clandestine landing strips for drug flights carrying northbound cocaine became common in the more sparsely populated regions of the country. Land routes were also popular among traffickers connected to Honduras.

With Tony’s protection, the Valle Valle brothers controlled the principal land corridor from Honduras into Guatemala, where between 150 to 300 tons of cocaine were trafficked each year since at least 2015. Tony also worked with Alexander Amilcar Ardón, a former drug-trafficker and mayor of the small town El Paraiso. 

While the Valle Valle brothers and Ardón were initially rivals, Tony brokered a truce between them, forming a sort of federation, according to court documents. These groups with Tony eventually all worked together to supply multi-ton cocaine shipments to the Sinaloa Cartel. 

It was Ardón who initially introduced Tony to El Chapo where the drug lord made a $1 million contribution to Juan Orlando Hernandez’s presidential campaign. 

Allies and Enemies

Through Tony, Hernández allegedly offered protection to some of the most prolific drug trafficking organizations in Honduras.

Tony’s principal clients were the Valle Valle brothers, with whom he got his start in large-scale trafficking. Tony brokered a truce between them and the group’s biggest rival, the AA Cartel, according to court documents.

Hernández allegedly provided Tony’s associates with political protection and support from authorities. This included the services of notorious former police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares, alias “El Tigre,” who is accused of using his position to protect drug shipments on behalf of Tony Hernández.

During Bonilla´s year at the helm of the Honduran National Police, he allegedly oversaw multi-ton loads of cocaine traveling from Colombia and Venezuela on to Guatemala, according to US prosecutors.  He also carried out murders on behalf of Tony, according to court testimony. Bonilla was extradited to the US on May 11, 2022. He will be tried with Juan Orlando Hernández.

Hernández was a constant scourge for the country’s opposition, having won his 2017 bid for re-election under dubious circumstances.

Until 2021, however, the political opposition had remained too divided to mount a strong enough campaign to ensure his defeat. This made Xiomara Castro’s decisive victory over her National Party opponent, Nasry Asfura, all the more historic, as it ended 12 years of National Party rule.

One of Hernandez’s more outspoken critics, former Security Minister Ramón Sabillón, ultimately carried out his arrest.  

Prospects

A New York Judge sentenced Juan Orlando Hernández to 45 years in jail on 26 June 2024. At 55 years old, Hernández will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. 

He is the third foreign former president convicted of drug trafficking in the United States, and joins the company of Manuel Noriega, Panama’s brutal dictator, who was convicted in 1992 of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. Andrew Fahie, the former premier of the British Virgin Islands, was also convicted on drug trafficking charges in February 2024.

Hernández faces little chance of early release. Many traffickers convicted in the US enter into plea agreements in exchange for more lenient sentences. However, because prosecutors believe that Hernández was at the top of the cocaine conspiracy and many of his co-conspirators are already in jail, his leverage is limited even if he decides to cooperate with future US drug investigations. 

The Honduran government continues to go after Hernández’s old network, many of whom remain in Honduras. 

The regular deportation of Hernández’s co-conspirators from the US as their sentences expire has also prompted fears that once fearsome criminal groups, such as the Valles and the Cachiros, may be rekindled in Honduras. 

The post Juan Orlando Hernández appeared first on InSight Crime.

Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez,” is a former guerrilla commander who rejected a 2016 peace agreement and formed a dissident group known as the Second Marquetalia (Segunda Marquetalia).

Márquez, as the former second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), attracted many ex-guerrillas back to criminality in the wake of the peace accords, and received pledges of loyalty from certain ex-FARC mafia groups.

After Colombian President Gustavo Petro launched his Total Peace (Paz Total) policy, which aims to negotiate with the country’s armed and criminal groups, Márquez and the Segunda Marquetalia have shown interest in negotiating with the government. However, the talks have not progressed beyond the initial stages. 

History

Iván Márquez was born on June 6, 1955, in Florencia, the capital of Colombia’s southern Caquetá department. Like many of the FARC’s oldest members, Márquez was part of the Colombian Communist Party Youth Organization (Juventud Comunista Colombiana – JUCO), joining in 1977.

As a member of the JUCO, he supported the FARC in part by taking provisions to the group in the countryside. He joined the FARC in 1985 as a political commissioner for one of the rebels’ most active units, the 14th Front in Caquetá.

In the early 1980s, as part of a peace process between the Colombian government and the FARC, Márquez became a top emissary for the rebels’ nascent political party, the Patriotic Union (Union Patriótica – UP). He was later elected as a city council member and then as an alternate congressman for Caquetá. 

In 1987, as the persecution of UP members by right-wing paramilitaries intensified, the FARC recalled Márquez and other top rebel emissaries in the party. The rebels named him commander of the Southwest Bloc for his efforts with the UP.

In the 1990s, Márquez was transferred to the northwestern part of the country, where he took part in a bloody battle for control of the Urabá region along the Colombia-Panama border.

This earned Márquez respect within the FARC as a strong military commander, complementing his political skills. The combination of these two abilities contributed to his trajectory as an international representative of the organization. 

His activities and influence spread far and wide. He became the guerrillas’ top foreign emissary, and intelligence officials in Colombia said he headed efforts to infiltrate universities and create student federations to support the FARC’s political and military strategy in Colombian cities.

Thanks to his political and diplomatic skills, Márquez was chosen to head the FARC’s delegation for peace talks with the Colombian government in 2012. He continued to head the guerrillas’ negotiating team after the talks moved to Havana, Cuba in November of that year.

After four years at the negotiating table, the FARC and the government signed peace accords in 2016. Márquez joined the body created to monitor implementation of the deal, and took a leadership position within the political party that replaced the rebel group.

However, the peace process was beset by turmoil in April 2018 after US drug charges led to the arrest of FARC leader Seuxis Paucis Hernández Solarte, alias “Jesús Santrich.” Márquez protested the arrest of his fellow former guerrilla and refused his post as a senator in the Colombian congress, which had been granted to him as part of the accords. He also ramped up his criticisms of the peace process and demanded that the government comply with stipulations in the agreement that had not been fulfilled, such as funding projects for ex-FARC members.

Amid this uncertainty, Márquez moved to a reintegration camp headed by former FARC commander Hernán Darío Velásquez, alias “El Paisa,” who previously led the militant Teófilo Forero Mobile Column.

Sometime later, he fled from the camp along with El Paisa and went into hiding. He was not heard from until May 2019, when he sent a message via Twitter saying that the FARC guerrillas made a “grave error” when they put down their weapons.

A few months later, in August 2019, Márquez — wearing fatigues and carrying a pistol — declared in a video published on YouTube that the Colombian government had “betrayed” the peace accords. He said his group, dubbed the Second Marquetalia in reference to the FARC’s original stronghold, would return to war.

Márquez set up a base of operations in Venezuela, capitalizing on opportunities to get involved in drug trafficking, illegal gold mining, and contraband. However, he faced significant setbacks in his attempts to gain control of the border region. At the end of 2021, three of his senior commanders were killed in Venezuela, leaving Márquez dangerously alone and exposed.

In December 2021, after the deaths of some of his closest allies, Márquez allegedly went into hiding. He was injured in an attack in 2022, and reports surfaced in 2023 that he had died from those injuries. But in 2024 he appeared in a video and later at a public event, confirming that he is still alive.

Criminal Activities

Iván Márquez has overseen the FARC’s drug policies, directing and controlling the production, manufacture, and distribution of cocaine. He also commanded FARC units accused of kidnapping, extortion and murder.

As the head of the Second Marquetalia, troops under his command control much of the drug trafficking along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, specifically in the Colombian department of Arauca and the Venezuelan state of Apure.

Geography

Before heading up the FARC’s peace negotiating team, Márquez primarily operated in northern Colombia. As commander of the Caribbean Bloc, his zones of influence included the Serranía del Perijá mountain range, the departments of La Guajira and Cesar, and some regions along the Colombia-Venezuela border.

While groups associated with the Second Marquetalia operated elsewhere in Colombia, its base of operations since 2019 has been the Venezuelan state of Apure. 

Allies and Enemies

Historically, the main enemies of FARC leaders like Márquez have included extreme right-wing elements of Colombia’s political elite, some of whom have had ties to paramilitary groups.

However, the FARC has seen its share of infighting as well. A rift formed in its ruling body when Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, alias “Timochenko,” assumed leadership of the FARC.

The division became most evident as the FARC transitioned into a political party. Márquez earned more votes than Timochenko to be elected to the party’s national directorate after running on a more critical line regarding the implementation of the peace agreement.

Following his return to criminality and the creation of the Second Marquetalia, Márquez made numerous enemies. His troops frequently clashed with other ex-FARC mafia groups, like those commanded by Miguel Botache Santillana, alias “Gentil Duarte,” as well as the biggest remaining rebel group in Colombia, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN). 

The Second Marquetalia also came under sustained pressure from Colombian and Venezuelan authorities, as three top commanders, El Paisa, Jesús Santrich, and Henry Castellanos Garzón, alias “Romaña,” were all killed in Venezuela in 2021.

Prospects

Following the deaths of most of the Second Marquetalia leadership, Márquez’s power and that of his group had significantly weakened ahead of Total Peace talks with the Gustavo Petro administration. The progress of peace negotiations with the Segunda Marquetalia has been impeded by the lack of clarity regarding the group’s status as a politically motivated insurgent group and their previous demobilization under the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC.

The post Luciano Marín Arango, alias ‘Iván Márquez’ appeared first on InSight Crime.

In an interview with Diálogo Político, InSight Crime co-founder Steven Dudley and investigator Lara Loaiza provided an in-depth panorama of organized crime in Latin America. 

The interview analyzed the evolution of criminal groups and industries in the region, examined the spike in violence in Ecuador, evaluated the effectiveness of the United States’ so-called war on drugs, and discussed President Nayib Bukele’s model for fighting crime in El Salvador. 

Read the interview > 

The post InSight Crime Analyzes Key Organized Crime Issues in Interview with Diálogo Político appeared first on InSight Crime.