by Jerry Dunleavy
Allegations of state-sponsored paramilitary training and operational control by Venezuela’s Maduro regime over Tren de Aragua (TdA) have fueled accusations of a hybrid criminal state, following U.S. intelligence disputes over the gang’s ties. Venezuelan officials’ denials of TdA’s existence contrast with evidence of the regime’s provision of sanctuary and support to the gang’s transnational crimes.
Venezuelan attorney general Tarek William claimed to El Pais this month that “Tren de Aragua was dismantled here” in Venezuela as he argued that the claims of links between the gang and the Maduro regime are “a fabrication intended to attack the Venezuelan government.” El Pais also noted that Saab is responsible for much of the repression against the Venezuelan opposition and citizens protesting against Maduro’s electoral fraud.
When announcing the arrest of more than two dozen TdA gang members on Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi argued that “Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang — it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence, engaged in human trafficking, and spread deadly drugs through our communities.”
The Justice Department also announced on Wednesday that it had charged an “alleged high-ranking member” of TdA, Jose Enrique Martinez Flores, with “conspiring to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization as well as conspiracy and distribution of cocaine in Colombia intended for distribution in the United States.”
DOJ criminal investigation into leaks
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement responding to the New York Times story that the DOJ was “opening a criminal investigation relating to the selective leak of inaccurate, but nevertheless classified, information from the Intelligence Community relating to Tren de Aragua” and that “we will not tolerate politically motivated efforts by the Deep State to undercut President Trump’s agenda by leaking false information onto the pages of their allies.”
Gabbard announced on Wednesday that “I referred two intelligence community LEAKS to the Department of Justice for criminal referral, with a third criminal referral on its way, which includes the recent illegal leak to the Washington Post.”
The New York Times reported last month that “only one agency, the FBI, partly dissented” and that the bureau “maintained the gang has a connection to the administration of Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro (pictured above), based on information the other agencies did not find credible.” The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the FBI “assessed a moderate level of cooperation between the gang and the Venezuelan government, two people familiar with the matter said.”
FBI points to TdA’s links to Maduro
FBI Director Patel responded to the stories on Sunday by tweeting that “the FBI assesses some members of the Maduro regime have links to TdA members who look to use those ties to advance their criminal objectives” and that “we stand by this assessment and consider TdA’s presence a direct threat to our national security.”
“Tren de Aragua is an extremely violent, highly organized transnational gang,” Patel also said. “Together with our law enforcement partners, we are actively working to identify, disrupt, and dismantle their networks. We will not allow foreign-backed criminal organizations to take root in our communities.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser during his first term, agreed with the FBI’s assessment on Twitter. “Tren de Aragua is a Foreign Terrorist organization directly backed by elements inside of the Venezuelan (VE) government,” Flynn tweeted in response. “The global alliance facing America today consists of a combination of nations and groups led by China. They’re aligned with Russia, North Korea, Iran, VE, radicalized Islamist terrorist organizations and an assortment of criminal enterprises. This is what America faces.”
Gabbard, Patel, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe all testified before the House Intelligence Committee in late March regarding TdA’s relationship with Maduro.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, asked the CIA chief, “Does the intelligence community assess that we are currently at war or being invaded by the nation of Venezuela?” Ratcliffe replied that “we have no assessment that says that.”
Castro asked the same question of Gabbard. She said that “there are varied assessments that came from different intelligence community elements” and that “I’ll defer to Director Patel to speak specifically to the FBI assessment.” But Castro did not seem interested in hearing from Patel.
“So you’re saying there are conflicting assessments that have come from the IC?” Castro asked.
Gabbard said that “that’s correct.” Castro replied that “we’ll take it up in closed session.”
The FBI has diverged with other intelligence agencies in the past
This is by no means the first time that the FBI has diverged from other spy agencies on intelligence assessments — the FBI was the first U.S. agency to conclude that COVID-19 likely emerged from a Wuhan lab, even as many other intelligence elements took the opposite view or remained on the fence.
Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray later confirmed that the FBI has long believed COVID-19 originated at a Chinese government lab. ODNI released in October 2021 a declassified version of the FBI’s arguments in a section titled, “The Case for the Laboratory-Associated Incident Hypothesis.”
The Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Center for Medical Intelligence assessed in the first half of 2020 that the lab leak hypothesis should not be dismissed as allies of Dr. Anthony Fauci wanted, but the defense scientists were reportedly blocked from sharing some of their findings with the FBI.
It was also revealed in 2023 that the Energy Department — home to advanced research facilities such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories — also believed with “low confidence” that the coronavirus started at a Wuhan lab.
Ratcliffe had testified to Congress in 2023 that the CIA and other spy agencies had enough evidence to get off the fence and to join the FBI and Energy Department in concluding that SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated at the Wuhan lab, and hinted that the U.S. intelligence community was holding back because of the significant ramifications such public conclusions would have for the U.S.-China relationship. Ratcliffe argued at the time that “a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science, and by common sense.”
The CIA, now under Director Ratcliffe, revealed in January that “CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin,” and at the same time, “that CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”
“Hybrid criminal state”
Trump’s executive order in March was titled, “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren De Aragua.”
“TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortion, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking,” Trump contended. “TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.”
Trump said: “Nicolas Maduro, who claims to act as Venezuela’s President and asserts control over the security forces and other authorities in Venezuela, also maintains close ties to regime-sponsored narco-terrorists. Maduro leads the regime-sponsored enterprise Cártel de los Soles, which coordinates with and relies on TdA and other organizations to carry out its objective of using illegal narcotics as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States.”
“Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,” Trump added. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also argued in March that “a predatory incursion is absolutely what has happened with Tren de Aragua. They have been sent here by the hostile Maduro regime in Venezuela.”
“Our Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing, and it applies to a situation just like this,” Bondi also said last month in justifying Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act. “Tren de Aragua — they are a foreign arm of the Venezuelan government.”
The State Department issued a $15 million reward seeking the arrest of Maduro in 2020, and the department increased that to $25 million in January of this year.
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Jerry Dunleavy is the chief investigative correspondent at Just the News.
The post Tren de Aragua and Maduro’s Venezuela: A Criminal Nexus first appeared on The Arizona Sun Times.
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