Tren de Aragua gang started in Venezuela’s prisons and now spreads fear in the US

Former federal agent Wes Tabor says his phone has been lighting up with calls from police departments around the U.S. for advice on how to combat the growing threat from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Tabor was in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas in 2012 when the gang was still new and when Tabor had barely heard of it.

Venezuela had long been a major transit zone for cocaine smuggled by Colombian guerrillas, with a leftist government that had close ties to some of America’s top adversaries, from Iran to Russia. So the homegrown street gang, although a concern to U.S. Embassy personnel in their daily movements around Venezuela’s dangerous capital, was not considered a major security risk to the United States.