A covert team of Venezuelan informants and ex-US officials are working with the Trump administration to track down members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang.
The small team made up of Venezuelans and former US officials 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 country.
The Tren de Aragua gang, formed in the notorious Tocorón prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state, has spread throughout countries bordering Venezuela and in the last decade has developed a reputation for being ‘ruthless’ and ‘fearless.’
Now, the highly-skilled group of investigators, which has deep connections to police and intelligence in Venezuela, is sharing crucial information on the dangerous criminals with the White House staff.
In one briefing before Donald Trump’s January inauguration, the group delivered a presentation including documents obtained from South American police agencies identifying 1,800 gang members believed to have been sent into the US, the Miami Herald reported.
However, Gary Bernsten, a former CIA station chief revealed a more sinister clue, claiming those sent to the US had ‘received paramilitary training in Venezuela.’
‘Among those sent to the US were 300 gang members who had received paramilitary training in Venezuela,’ Berntsen said.
Gary Bernsten (pictured), a former CIA station chief, is part of a covert team of Venezuelan informants and ex-US officials who are working with the Trump administration to track down members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang
The Tren de Aragua gang, formed in the notorious Tocorón prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state, has spread throughout countries bordering Venezuela and in the last decade has developed a reputation for being ‘ruthless’ and ‘fearless.’ Pictured: Arrival of alleged members of Tren de Aragua at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador
More than 250 suspected gang members arrive in El Salvador by plane, including 238 members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang and 23 members of the MS-13 gang
‘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, who is also one of the highly-specialized team’s members, added.
‘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.’
An anonymous member of the secret team also told the outlet that the investigative group has access to records from the police agencies of the South American country to help further along their top-secret mission.
The unnamed official added that the information in the disclosed files have led to the identification and arrests of ‘at least 800 Venezuelans’ who are believed to be members of Tren de Aragua.
The group also claimed that Venezuelan intelligence services had provided logistics and money to hundreds of members of the feared gang in order to help with their entry into the US.
Tren de Aragua members were deliberately sent into the largest American cities to ‘create problems’ for 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 anonymous group member said.
Tren de Aragua members were also tasked with setting up drug distribution networks in major cities, according to the Miami Herald.
Some of the gang’s members are believed to have been a part of an estimated 20,000 inmates who have been released from Venezuelan prisons and were told they had to leave the country if they wanted to remain free.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele confirmed they will be sent to the country’s infamous mega-prison at CECOP facility prison
States where Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is operating now
Information gathered by the team from sources inside the regime points to a plan that would place 5,000 gang members inside the United States, Berntsen said.
‘This is the equivalent of an oversized combat brigade dispersed through 20 different locations, but with thousands of people that would be able to communicate, move drugs, and do whatever they needed, and be able on hand to put pressure on the US with violence in cities, and build out a massive criminal infrastructure in America,’ the former CIA official said.
Berntsen added that the team first became aware of the situation while conducting an investigation on a separate case.
In addition to the information provided by the team, the Trump administration has been receiving data provided by the police organizations from Peru, Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia, countries that had a large number of Tren de Aragua members.
Recently, the high-profile team has been using unique information, such as recognizable tattoos to identify members of the Venezuelan gang.
However, the body markings may soon disappear as the criminal organization’s leadership is now warning its members to stop getting the ink that announces them to authorities.
Federal law enforcement sources confirm to DailyMail.com that Tren de Aragua leadership is having its members already bearing the mob’s signature tattoos burn them off.
Tren de Aragua’s tattoos have become a flashpoint as the Trump Administration continues to lean heavily on skin markings to ID Venezuelan migrants as gangsters and deport them to a supermax prison in El Salvador.
President Trump justified the deportations, which did not follow the normal legal proceeding where judges sign off on each individual being removed from the US, using the controversial Alien Enemies Act.
As American courts decide if Trump is even legally able to apply the law to Venezuelan migrants, allegations have surfaced that the some of the deportees were wrongly accused of being Tren de Aragua by tattoos that were mistaken for the gang’s insignia.
But the recent confusion over tattoos could become a moot point soon since TdA, as the group is known to law enforcement, is banning them.
Recently, the high-profile team has been using unique information, such as recognizable tattoos to identify members of the Venezuelan gang
Alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang were indicted for a conspiracy to sell and traffic illegal firearms in New York
‘Now we’re seeing the fact that they’re not getting tattoos because they’re aware that that’s an identifier for us,’ Tim Sullivan, the Chief Patrol Agent for US Border Patrol Special Operations, told El Paso station KFOX-TV.
TdA, known to be incredibly adaptive and organized, issued the body art ban after its members interacted with Border Patrol and other federal agencies in the US.
‘They try to learn from us as much as we learn from them, and that’s what also made them, to a certain point, a difficult target to assess,’ FBI in El Paso Special Agent in Charge John Morales explained.
‘While we’re trying to do our job and we’re interviewing them at the border…they were sending that information back and telling their folks, “Don’t do A, don’t do B, don’t do C, don’t bring this or the other,” so that we wouldn’t be able to detect them or identify them.’
Sullivan added the body art is simply one way TdA thugs are linked to their criminal network in Venezuela.
‘It’s been just good police work that’s been able to identify them through post-arrest interviews and the joint operations that we’ve conducted,’ he said.
Those interviews are happening in great detail now that border crossings have plummeted, Border Patrol confirms.
Additionally, US federal agencies cross reference information with South American law enforcement officials in order to classify a Venezuelan migrant as Tren de Aragua affiliate.