Tren de Aragua: are Trump's claims about a violent street gang overblown?

The crime group has terrorised parts of Latin America, and the ex-president’s exaggerations may just empower it more

Tiago Rogero South America correspondent
Fri 1 Nov 2024 07.00 EDT

Ángela Villón Bustamante awoke to a WhatsApp notification on her phone. Still drowsy, she was horrified by what she saw: a graphic video showing the murder of a trans woman she knew named Rubí Ferrer.

The killer shot Ferrer 31 times, recording the murder with her own phone before sending the footage to all her contacts, including Bustamante, a prominent activist in the Peruvian sex workers’ movement.

. . .

Venezuelan journalist Ronna Rísquez, who wrote a book about Tren de Aragua, also said the scale of the group’s activities in the US had been exaggerated by “political interests associated with xenophobia and an intention to criminalise Venezuelan migration”.

Social media posts falsely claiming that a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in Colorado were cited by Trump during the last US presidential debate, even after local authorities had publicly refuted the claims.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/tren-de-aragua-trump-organized-crime