The feared Tren de Aragua gang, which was born in a prison in Venezuela, has transformed the type of crime in Chile, where it accumulates a long list of crimes. The one that most demonstrates the power of the organization; the kidnapping and murder of a Venezuelan opponent who appeared buried under a layer of cement. Not only because of the cruelty, but because of the diplomatic crisis that it opened between countries.
Cells of the Mara Salvatrucha, with a historic presence in El Salvador, have sought new alliances in Mexico, causing a serious threat on the southern border. The expansive strategy of Brazil's Primeiro Comando da Capital is turning the group into the most dangerous in all of South America, as a parallel power within the States. These criminal actors have demonstrated their evident ability to cross borders and corrupt institutions in Latin America. But they aspire to more: to make the definitive leap to Europe, taking advantage of migration routes. And they see in Spain, which perceives the phenomenon with maximum alert, an opportunity to start, although the National Police plans to make it difficult for them.
A pioneering group from the General Information Commission (CGI), which works hand in hand with the Judicial Police and Immigration, is focused on the strategy against new destabilizing threats to internal security: a hybrid challenge, which transcends conventional crime with the aim of attacking the waterline of democratic institutions. Previous transnational criminal organizations are in the spotlight. All of them, as experience in Latin America has shown, have the capacity to generate areas of impunity and institutional destabilization through penetration into the political, economic, and social fabric.
CGI sources explain that these mega criminal gangs, like the rest, seek to get rich, but they alter the order of factors to achieve it: "A typical mafia seeks to make as much money as possible, but always with the fear of its dismantling. However, if before getting rich they manage to insert themselves into the institutions, through corruption or extortion, police operations can mysteriously fall apart. And if they do not repress you...".
Transnational organizations that are on the CGI's radar operate as criminal franchises. Not like a traditional mafia, in which all the criminals are under the control of a single boss. In these cases, the local structures that intend to establish themselves in new countries function autonomously, although they report successes to the brand, from which they have adopted the ways of acting.
Currently, Tren de Aragua is the greatest exponent of this criminal franchise in Spain, where it is trying to take root. And that, precisely, is what the CGI group is trying to prevent: not only to pursue the crimes they are committing – drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering or document falsification, among others – but to generate intelligence to anticipate their implementation in the country.
Here the success of the operations is not measured by the kilos of narcotics seized, the number of detainees or the money found hidden, but by prevention. And the threads to pull.
Operation Intercity is proof of this. It started after the younger brother of Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores, alias Niño Guerrero, the top leader of the group who was assassinated last June by the United States, was detected in Barcelona. The CGI followed all his steps to obtain information about the places he frequented or the people he interacted with until an international alert precipitated his arrest in March 2024.
The data collected served to connect dots until it was confirmed that Niño Guerrero's relative intended to expand the criminal structure in Spain and allow the dismantling for the first time in the country of a cell of the Aragua Train with 13 arrests. Then, in November of last year, the Police warned that investigations were continuing in order to detect more members of the network.
A few months later, the next one fell: a fugitive who was dedicated to hacking ATMs to finance the organization. After another round of five arrests at the end of July, for illegal possession of weapons, robberies with violence, injuries or illegal detention, the number rises to thirty.
If there is concern about the implementation of the Aragua Train in Spain, it is because there is a perfect breeding ground for its germination, unlike other European countries: the Venezuelan diaspora, “which facilitates its concealment,” according to the sources consulted. Since 2018, the Government has granted expressly 240,000 residence permits for humanitarian authorizations to Venezuelans. In eight years, this community has gone from 255,000 people to almost 700,000 today.
They are potential victims, but also possible executioners. On the one hand, they fish among their community for illicit human trafficking or sexual exploitation, but on the other, they hunt for new, increasingly younger followers. The CGI recognizes that the Aragua Train is not yet in a phase of consolidated implementation as in other Latin American countries, but they warn of the detected catchment capacity and the movement from Barcelona and Madrid, the main centers relevant to its Venezuelan community, to more points of the geography.
And not necessarily to control other territories where other gangs are established, but to offer their services for hitmen, extortion or kidnappings. It is the same pattern that transnational gangs have followed in other countries until achieving large doses of delegitimization of the State by highlighting its inability to combat crime.
Hence, collaboration between countries, to avoid reaching that point, is key. The Police participate in the International Group against Transnational Organized Crime (GICCOT), sponsored by the US agency FBI. A forum that also played a leading role in the dismantling of a substructure of the Mara Salvatrucha MS13 that sought to establish itself on Spanish soil.
Following instructions from the American continent, the members of a solid and hierarchical structure, based in Barcelona and Madrid, used drug trafficking to obtain firearms with which to find a place among gangs. The operation ended in April 2025 with 27 detainees, some of them involved in homicides.
The continuous blows that the Police are dealing to these organizations, even declared narcoterrorists, show their intention to establish themselves in Spain. Also behind each dismantled cell, another crime franchise, for which borders are no obstacle, is waiting for its opportunity. They do not need to disembark all the pieces of their structure in the country, they only need one that becomes invisible to destabilize. It is up to the Police to prevent them from not fitting the puzzle.
