Venezuela weaponized Tren de Aragua gang to hurt the U.S., FBI warned in January

Miami Herald

4 days ago

A newly surfaced FBI memorandum directly challenges earlier U.S. intelligence assessments and asserts that the Venezuelan regime is actively enabling the expansion of Tren de Aragua, the South American country's most powerful transnational criminal organization, in a campaign to destabilize neighboring countries and the United States.
The January 2025 memo, first reported this week by The New York Times, presents a stark portrait of a regime willing to export violence, organized crime and repression to maintain power and gain geopolitical leverage. It describes a coordinated strategy by the Nicolas Maduro government to release violent criminals, facilitate their migration abroad, and deploy them as unofficial enforcers—not only across Latin America but increasingly in U.S. cities.
The memo was submitted by the Trump administration on Thursday to a federal judge in Texas overseeing one of a growing number of lawsuits challenging the government's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the gang to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
According to the FBI, the campaign sought to generate chaos, stretch law enforcement capacity and intimidate Venezuelan dissidents living in exile.
Once confined to prison networks in Venezuela's Aragua state, TDA has grown into a sprawling, multinational criminal syndicate. Now classified as a 'megagang,' the group operates across Latin America and, according to U.S. law enforcement, has established a presence in several American cities.
The FBI believes this expansion is deliberate.
'Some Venezuelan government officials likely facilitate the migration of TDA members… to advance the Maduro regime's objective of undermining public safety in the United States,' the memo states. The assessment, supported by multiple sources, carries a 'medium confidence' rating due to limitations in source access and corroboration.
'As of November 2023, the Venezuelan government had strategically managed and financed TDA as part of a broader foreign policy goal: to create internal security and social problems for the United States,' the report reads. It adds that Maduro viewed the migrant crisis and social unrest in cities like New York and Chicago as evidence of TDA's success in creating political and security challenges he could use as leverage in sanctions negotiations with Washington.
This assessment lends weight to a controversial assertion made by President Donald Trump, who recently invoked wartime powers to expedite the deportation of suspected gang members to a high-security facility in El Salvador. The move relied on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a rarely used wartime statute—to bypass standard legal protections. Although Trump initially used the act to detain and transfer Venezuelans linked to gangs, federal courts have since blocked the policy.
Opposition leaders in Venezuela, including María Corina Machado, have long accused Maduro and top official Diosdado Cabello of masterminding TDA's rise. These accusations gained renewed attention in March, when Trump cited them as justification for invoking the wartime statute.
The FBI report contradicts a previously released U.S. National Intelligence Council assessment, which concluded in April 2024 that while Venezuela's permissive environment enables TDA's operations, the Maduro regime likely does not exert direct control over the gang.
'While Venezuela's permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movements to or operations in the United States,' the NIC's April 7 memo stated.
It added: 'This judgment is based on Venezuelan law enforcement actions indicating the regime treats TDA as a threat; an uneasy mix of cooperation and confrontation—rather than top-down control—characterizes the regime's ties to armed groups; and the decentralized structure of TDA would make a direct command relationship logistically difficult.'
The FBI report — which had been drafted earlier than the National Intelligence Council assessment but only made public this week —presents a much different view.
According to the bureau's findings, senior Venezuelan officials are involved in TDA's daily operations, with 'strategic decision-making regarding government use of TDA' reportedly passing through Maduro himself. The president allegedly relies on trusted intermediaries to insulate himself from public links to the group.
TDA's criminal portfolio includes drug trafficking, extortion, human smuggling and contract killings. But, as outlined in the memo, its most insidious role is as a covert arm of Venezuela's security state—used to assassinate dissidents, threaten exiled opposition figures, and weaponize migration as a geopolitical tool.
The report links this strategy to the legacy of former President Hugo Chávez, who helped institutionalize the use of colectivos—state-sponsored paramilitary groups—for domestic repression. Now, according to the FBI, that same tactic has been exported.
Among the memo's most alarming revelations is the claim that high-ranking officials—such as María Iris Varela Rangel, who oversaw Venezuela's prison system, and Diosdado Cabello—have directly orchestrated the release and overseas deployment of TDA operatives.
As of February 2024, Varela had reportedly been 'deliberately releasing members of TDA from the prison systems,' encouraging them to leave the country for the United States and, in some cases, assisting with their travel. In at least one instance, TDA leaders were provided with relocation plans for their families, further suggesting a state-sanctioned strategy to extend the gang's global footprint.
For Venezuelan exiles who once saw countries like the U.S., Colombia, and Chile as safe havens, the FBI warns those sanctuaries may no longer be secure. Over the next 6 to 18 months, the bureau predicts Venezuelan officials will 'leverage TDA members in the United States as proxy actors to threaten, abduct, and kill members of the Venezuelan diaspora.'
That grim forecast may have already begun to materialize. In February 2024, a former Venezuelan army lieutenant and vocal Maduro critic was abducted and killed in Chile. The FBI believes the attack was orchestrated by Venezuelan intelligence and carried out by TDA members. Chilean authorities confirmed the victim had no criminal ties, contradicting Venezuelan claims he was involved in a plot to assassinate Maduro.
The regime has a pattern of blaming foreign intelligence services for acts of violence it orchestrates, the memo adds—allowing it to deny responsibility while continuing transnational repression.
The implications for U.S. cities are significant. The FBI explicitly names New York and Chicago as urban centers where TDA's presence has contributed to 'border chaos and widespread problems.' The threat, the report emphasizes, is not just criminal but political, with the gang's activities serving the strategic purpose of pressuring the U.S. government on sanctions and immigration policy.
In response, the FBI calls for enhanced coordination among federal, state, and local law enforcement, increased education on TDA tactics, and robust intelligence-sharing protocols. Legal attachés across the Americas have reportedly built strong partnerships with regional police forces—networks the FBI believes are critical to tracking TDA across borders.
Still, the bureau acknowledges ongoing challenges. Proving direct coordination between the gang and the Venezuelan state remains complex. Maduro's use of intermediaries makes finding evidence difficult, and some intelligence sources may be biased, hoping their cooperation will bolster asylum claims. Even so, the report concludes that consistent patterns of state-enabled violence and repression suggest a deliberate strategy with dangerous transnational implications.
The FBI assessment concludes that Venezuela has morphed into a 'hybrid criminal state,' where the boundaries between government and organized crime are deliberately blurred. Criminal groups act as de facto authorities in some regions, while the state leverages their violence for political ends.
That evolution mirrors trends seen in other fragile states where the rule of law has eroded — but with one key difference: Venezuela's criminal strategy is explicitly transnational, with ambitions that extend far beyond its borders.
While invoking the special war powers in March, Trump claimed that Maduro deliberately sent TDA members to the U.S. as part of an 'organized aggression' aimed at destabilizing the country. He asserted that many gang members had infiltrated the U.S. under orders from Maduro and Cabello, describing their presence as an act of 'irregular warfare.'
The administration had previously designated Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, while the Justice Department has several indictments accusing Maduro, Cabello and othe top regime members of leading Venezuela's top narco-trafficking group known as the Soles Cartel.
'The regime is perpetrating an invasion and predatory incursion into the United States, which poses a substantial danger,' Trump said in his March proclamation. 'TdA operates in conjunction with the Cartel de los Soles, the Nicolás Maduro regime-sponsored narco-terrorist enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and trafficking of humans, drugs, and weapons.'