As the U.S. tracks suspected Venezuelan gang members, a look at a a group that’s helping
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article302247909.html
A small team of Venezuelans and former U.S. officials with deep connections to police and intelligence in the South American country has been providing information to the Trump administration about the number and identities of members of Tren de Aragua and other Venezuelan gangs headed to or already in the United States. The group, which has been meeting with high-ranking members of the administration, made a presentation to President Donald Trump’s team before he was inaugurated on Jan. 20, detailing links between the feared Tren de Aragua gang and the Nicolás Maduro regime, and provided official documents obtained from Venezuelan police agencies identifying 1,800 gang members believed to have been sent into the United States, three sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald.
Among those sent to the United States were 300 gang members who had received paramilitary training in Venezuela, said Gary Berntsen, a decorated former CIA station chief who headed the agency’s unit searching for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. “The Venezuelan regime has assumed operational control of these guys [Tren de Aragua] and has trained 300 of them; they have given them paramilitary training, training them to fire weapons, on how to conduct sabotage, how to use crypto,” Berntsen, one of the team members, said. “They have given them all like a four- to six-week course. They put these 300 guys through that course and that they were deploying them into the United States to 20 locations, to 20 separate states”.
Another team member, who requested anonymity to protect the identities of the team’s sources in Venezuela, said the group has had access to records from the police agencies of the South American country and that these were provided to the Trump administration, and that they have led to the identification and arrests of at least 800 Venezuelans who are believed to be either full-fledged members of Tren de Aragua or members of smaller affiliated gangs. Logistics and money The team of investigators, which for years have been exposing the threat to the U.S. posed by the Maduro regime, has in the past helped federal investigators in the U.S. target top members of the Caracas government accused by the U.S. justice system of running the Soles drug cartel and of high level corruption through different administrations. The administration has also obtained data from law enforcement agencies from Latin American nations where Tren de Aragua members set up criminal operations before attempting to extend their reach into the United States. The gang’s presence has been blamed for a spike of violent crimes in those countries.
In the presentation to the Trump administration, the group claimed that Venezuelan intelligence services had provided logistics and money to hundreds of members of Tren de Aragua to enter the U.S. The Tren de Aragua members were deliberately sent into the largest American cities to create problems for U.S. law enforcement agencies, the source told the Herald. But they “are not just criminals sent to cause havoc. They are soldiers sent in an asymmetric warfare operation against the United States,” the source speaking under condition of anonymity said. Tren de Aragua members were also tasked with setting up drug distribution networks in major U.S. cities to fill the void created by the crackdown on the Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, which was severely weakened by the arrest of its leadership in El Salvador in 2022. The Salvadoran gang had served as an important U.S. outlet for the drugs provided by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, which according to U.S. law enforcement investigations is one of the top partners of the Venezuelan cartel allegedly headed by Maduro and his number two in the regime, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.....
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This is asymmetrical warfare by the Maduro regime a TdA is his army.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article302247909.html
A small team of Venezuelans and former U.S. officials with deep connections to police and intelligence in the South American country has been providing information to the Trump administration about the number and identities of members of Tren de Aragua and other Venezuelan gangs headed to or already in the United States. The group, which has been meeting with high-ranking members of the administration, made a presentation to President Donald Trump’s team before he was inaugurated on Jan. 20, detailing links between the feared Tren de Aragua gang and the Nicolás Maduro regime, and provided official documents obtained from Venezuelan police agencies identifying 1,800 gang members believed to have been sent into the United States, three sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald.
Among those sent to the United States were 300 gang members who had received paramilitary training in Venezuela, said Gary Berntsen, a decorated former CIA station chief who headed the agency’s unit searching for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. “The Venezuelan regime has assumed operational control of these guys [Tren de Aragua] and has trained 300 of them; they have given them paramilitary training, training them to fire weapons, on how to conduct sabotage, how to use crypto,” Berntsen, one of the team members, said. “They have given them all like a four- to six-week course. They put these 300 guys through that course and that they were deploying them into the United States to 20 locations, to 20 separate states”.
Another team member, who requested anonymity to protect the identities of the team’s sources in Venezuela, said the group has had access to records from the police agencies of the South American country and that these were provided to the Trump administration, and that they have led to the identification and arrests of at least 800 Venezuelans who are believed to be either full-fledged members of Tren de Aragua or members of smaller affiliated gangs. Logistics and money The team of investigators, which for years have been exposing the threat to the U.S. posed by the Maduro regime, has in the past helped federal investigators in the U.S. target top members of the Caracas government accused by the U.S. justice system of running the Soles drug cartel and of high level corruption through different administrations. The administration has also obtained data from law enforcement agencies from Latin American nations where Tren de Aragua members set up criminal operations before attempting to extend their reach into the United States. The gang’s presence has been blamed for a spike of violent crimes in those countries.
In the presentation to the Trump administration, the group claimed that Venezuelan intelligence services had provided logistics and money to hundreds of members of Tren de Aragua to enter the U.S. The Tren de Aragua members were deliberately sent into the largest American cities to create problems for U.S. law enforcement agencies, the source told the Herald. But they “are not just criminals sent to cause havoc. They are soldiers sent in an asymmetric warfare operation against the United States,” the source speaking under condition of anonymity said. Tren de Aragua members were also tasked with setting up drug distribution networks in major U.S. cities to fill the void created by the crackdown on the Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, which was severely weakened by the arrest of its leadership in El Salvador in 2022. The Salvadoran gang had served as an important U.S. outlet for the drugs provided by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, which according to U.S. law enforcement investigations is one of the top partners of the Venezuelan cartel allegedly headed by Maduro and his number two in the regime, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.....
======================================
This is asymmetrical warfare by the Maduro regime a TdA is his army.