MIAMI.- The Republican senator Marco Rubio assured this Thursday, April 11, that the Criminal organizations linked to drug trafficking that operate in Latin America today, such as the Venezuelan Train from Araguaare a national security problem.
“All of this becomes endemic to our national security, because ultimately whatever happens in the region, it will end here. It is located here in our banking system. It is found here in our streetsboth due to the presence of drugs and these criminal organizations that migrate here,” said the high-ranking member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee.
During his speech at the hearing on the fight against transnational criminal networks and corruption in the hemisphere, he stressed that these criminal structures They are an “engine” of the migration crisis unprecedented situation that the country faces today, which has received more than eight million migrants during the Joe Biden administration.
“One of the reasons why people leave these countries is because they feel threatened by these criminal groups. “It is a growing problem,” she noted.
Proof that the Aragua Train is in the US
One of these criminal organizations that has currently become transnational is the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which today has its tentacles in Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Bolivia and Brazil, and its incursion into US territory has recently been exposed.
“Now we are seeing evidence that they have reached the United States. Every day we see reports from Chicago, South Florida and New York that these gang members are here,” Rubio said.
He mentioned that this gang, which emerged from the Tocorón prison, located in north-central Venezuela, is “especially cruel” and specializes in crimes of extortion, kidnapping, rape, murder for hire “and everything you can imagine.”
Between October 2022 and November 2023, the Border Patrol detained at least 38 possible members of the Venezuelan criminal organization in sectors of the border crossing with Mexico, according to official information.
In recent months, American authorities have detained several Venezuelans related to the Aragua Train in different states of the country, revealing the incursion of this criminal gang into US territory.
Chavista refusal
The existence of this Venezuelan organization has been denied by the Nicolás Maduro regime, despite the fact that there is evidence of its criminal actions in different countries in the region.
“The Aragua Train is a fiction created by the international media, to try to create a non-existent label, as they did at the time with the Cartel of the Suns,” said Chavista Foreign Minister Iván Gil after a meeting with his Colombian counterpart.
The refusal of the Chavista regime to recognize the existence of the Aragua Train, whose main base of operations was dismantled last September, without its main leaders being arrested, led the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, which today is investigating the group’s incursion into its country, to call its ambassador in Caracas, Jaime Gazmuri, for consultations.
In his opinion, Gil’s “irresponsible statements” are “deeply worrying” and constitute a “serious insult to those who have been victims of this organization and also to their families”.
The leftist Boric, who until now has had a moderate relationship with the Chavista dictatorship, assured that the lack of knowledge of the Aragua Train demonstrates “a lack of commitment to international cooperation” in matters of security and a “refusal to effectively address the transnational problems of organized crime.
Cooperation of the Venezuelan regime
Senator Marco Rubio also denounced that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), together with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Gulf Clan and Mexican cartels, have allowed the establishment of a “lucrative market” for drug production and export in the region with “cooperation of the Venezuelan regime”.
“While these groups continue to link up, Colombia remains the largest producer and exporter of cocaine in the world. Now they have created these lucrative markets and they have linked up with these Mexican cartels with cooperation, unfortunately, with the Venezuelan regime, which in turn has been surprised. cooperating with the transportation of cocaine out of Colombia“, accurate.
In his speech, Rubio referred to the recent sentence of 21 years and nine months in prison that former Venezuelan general Clíver Alcalá, related to the Cartel de los Soles, received by a New York judge for providing weapons to the FARC and sending tons of drugs to the US.
“It is part of Maduro’s sources of income (drug trafficking) for the regime,” Rubio said.
Source: With information from a press release / DLA Editorial Team
