TdA’s name translates as the ‘train of Aragua’ and refers to a failed railway project funded by a large loan from China.
When deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro appeared in court on Jan. 5, an indictment accused him and his wife, Cilia Flores, of a string of charges, including conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States and narcoterrorism.
One of his co-accused named in the indictment was Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka “Niño Guerrero,” one of the founders of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) drug cartel.
In July 2024, the U.S. State Department offered a $12 million reward for information leading to the capture of Guerrero; co-founder Yohan Jose Romero, also known as Johan Petrica; and Giovanny San Vicente, also known as El Viejo.
But TdA may have grown so large that it can survive the capture of Maduro—which was carried out on the orders of U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 3—and even the fall of the entire socialist regime in Caracas, experts said.
“Tren de Aragua was highly dependent on Maduro’s existence for its proliferation. That’s not debatable at this stage,” Pedro Rojas Arroyo, a Venezuelan-born entrepreneur and founder of Vivy Tech, told The Epoch Times.
“That being said, with the current power order in Venezuela … and the actual field of play is not changing, corruption still there, I think Tren de Aragua has a good chance of surviving,” said Rojas Arroyo, whose family fled Venezuela in 2024 after they were subject to persistent kidnapping.
The removal of Maduro will be a blow to Tren de Aragua, but a lot depends on how swiftly the United States acts to rebuild democratic governance, Fergus Hodgson, author of “The Latin America Red Pill,” told The Epoch Times.
“TdA is so dispersed and decentralized now—the horses have bolted—that reining it in will be incredibly difficult,” said Hodgson, who also publishes Impunity Observer, which provides research and analyses on Latin America’s politics and economy.
He said the mention of Guerrero in the Maduro indictment suggests U.S. law enforcement is aware that TdA is a “monumental problem.”
The capture of Maduro is one of the most lethal geopolitical strikes that TdA has received from Trump, François Cavard, a human rights activist who has spent years investigating the drug trade in Central and South America, told The Epoch Times.
He said the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) regime may be living on borrowed time, but TdA still has “criminal possibilities” in Colombia, which is led by leftist President Gustavo Petro. He said, “That is something Washington and the world must do something about.”
“Although the danger of Tren de Aragua spreading its criminal, violent, predatory and destructive tentacles far beyond Venezuela is already true and painfully real, no transnational criminal organization, not even the Tren de Aragua, will grow too big to be dismantled and destroyed by determined, honest, committed and incorruptible authorities,” said Cavard, who pointed to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s success in taking on MS-13.
