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Evidence suggests that the Venezuelan group has been supplying
weapons to Brazilian crime groups such as Red Command, officials
said. The northern Brazilian state of Roraima has been a main
corridor for the illicit trade, police investigator Wesley Costa
told local news outlet G1.
The Justice Ministry said police arrested 18 Venezuelans and 7
Brazilians in the crackdown, a joint effort of national security
forces and police in Roraima.
They also served 30 search warrants across five states: Amazonas
and Roraima, in the Amazon; Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas
Gerais, in the southeast; and Parana, in southern Brazil.
Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at a prison
with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua.
The gang has expanded in recent years as more than 7.7 million
Venezuelans fled economic turmoil and migrated to other Latin
American countries or the U.S.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that a U.S. military
attack killed the leader of the Tren de Aragua gang, Hector
Rusthenford Guerrero.
Experts and authorities in Brazil have warned about the
Venezuelan group's expansion into Brazil over the last few
years, acting in cooperation with domestic gangs like the First
Command of the Capital, or PCC, and the Red Command, or CV.
“The group played a strategic role in supplying high-caliber
firearms to criminal organizations operating across several
regions of Brazil,” the Justice Ministry said.
The Trump administration has labeled Latin American cartels as
foreign terrorist organizations as part of a broader crackdown
on drug trafficking, including deadly boat strikes against
suspected “narcoterrorists” in the Caribbean and eastern
Pacific.
Tren de Aragua was listed a foreign terrorist organization by
the State Department last year, with federal prosecutors
accusing Guerrero of shipping drugs to the U.S. and organizing
acts of terror across borders, including the murder of a
Venezuelan dissident in Chile.
In May, the State Department said it would also designate the
Red Command and the PCC as foreign terrorist organizations.
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