Millions of Americans were shocked when President Trump invoked a war-time law to deport Tren de Aragua gangsters on planes that flew to El Salvador.
But one expert said the 238 men seen being handcuffed and led away may have been acting directly on behalf of Venezuela’s rogue government.
Miami immigration attorney Rolando Vazquez says he believes communist dictator Nicolas Maduro deployed the Tren de Aragua gangsters as ‘foot soldiers’ to destabilize the US,
He agrees that Trump was well within his rights to get rid.
‘In my opinion, what Maduro did was an act of war.
‘He sent his agents here to attack us,’ Vazquez told DailyMail.com.
‘What Maduro did was send them over here for the purpose of expanding their operations and terrorizing and attacking US citizens.’
Tren de Aragua gangsters have been blamed for a horrific crime wave sine first crossing into the United States over the southern border in 2022.
It has also been linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group, as DailyMail.com exclusively reported.
Law enforcement also believes the Venezuelan syndicate has been executing crimes on orders from the Maduro regime.
‘They are directly connected to the Maduro regime in Venezuela- no question about it,’ former ICE Special Agent Victor Avila told DailyMail.com Monday.
Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government
‘As a matter of fact, they’re tied to Cartel de Los Soles, which Maduro is the head of. That in itself is enough to qualify them.’
Trump designated TdA, as the mobsters are known to law enforcement, as a terrorist organization when he took office in January.
The president invoked the Aliens Enemies Act Saturday.
That gives his administration the ability to deport any Venezuelan in the US over the age of 14 who is suspected of being a Tren de Aragua gangster without seeing a judge or following the normal due process.
Even though a US judge issued a retraining order, saying that three airplanes carrying TdA members bound for El Salvador must turn back, the Trump administration ignored the ruling and landed in the Central American country anyway.
They said that the jets were over international waters by the time the ruling came through, meaning the judge did not have jurisdiction.
Avila, the former ICE agent who has close ties to Trump border czar Tom Homan, adds that the Trump team is still planning on deporting more suspected TdA members under the Alien Enemies Act.
‘Remember, they’re terrorists, and that’s what we need to start calling them because that’s what they are,’ Avila added.
‘You would never release an ISIS member. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if this was ISIS, so why are we having this conversation when it’s Tren de Aragua.’
After arriving from the US, alleged Venezuelan gang members were taken to maximum security prison in the El Salvador. Even though the Venezuelan government agreed to take back its own citizens, the third country located in Central America is notorious for housing the worst of the worst in its Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison
El Salvador’s leader, in a meeting last month with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, offered to house prisoners from the United States in his country
Many legal experts have made the case that Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is illegal because the US has not at war with Venezuela, and the only times the law has been used is when the country was in a declared war.
Trump has made the case that TdA has attacked the US through ‘irregular warfare.’
In the US, members of the gang have been charged in the murder of Laken Riley, the beating of NYPD officers and the take-over of multiple apartment complexes across the country.
Tren de Aragua, which means ‘train from Aragua’ for the Venezuelan province where the gang was born, has carried out the dictator’s orders for years.
‘The Maduro regime is essentially a cartel. They have the name of the “Cartel de los Soles,”‘ Miami immigration attorney Rolando Vazquez said in a interview with DailyMail.com.
‘They are the largest cartel on this side of the hemisphere so all criminal organizations underneath him, if they’re not in line with them, they can’t operate.’
Under Maduro’s regime, Tren de Aragua expanded outside of the walls of the Tocoron prison where it was born, spreading within Venezuela and later throughout South America.
In Venezuela, being a TdA member carries a status symbol, and they are well known ‘Chavisitas’– loyal supporters of the communist regime that began with Hugo Chavez.
‘These guys are “Chavisitas.” These guys are communists, they’re socialists,’ Avila explained.
The DOJ released these images in 2020, as it charged top members of the Venezuela’s government, including current President Nicolas Maduro, with being drug traffickers
Nicolas Maduro remains president of Venezuela despite stealing two elections, most recently in 2023
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (C) and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) shake hands before an inter-delegation meeting at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezula on August 27, 2016
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 30, 2006 in Tehran, Iran
‘I don’t like to call them a “gang” because they’re a highly sophisticated network that goes all the way up to the (Nicolas) Maduro regime,’ retired federal agent Victor Avila, Jr. told DailyMail.com.
‘The connection that TdA has through Venezuela with terrorist organizations, with Iran and Hezbollah…for some reason people don’t want to pick that up, they don’t want to talk about it.’
In 2020, the Trump administration charged Maduro and 14 of his current and former officials with narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking charges.
The Department of Justice announced a $15 reward for Maduro’s arrest and multi-million rewards for his top lieutenants.
As the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, Maduro’s government worked with the FARC, a paramilitary group in Colombia, to ‘flood’ the US with cocaine since 1999.
For years, Iran and Venezuela’s dictators have engaged in a bromance fueled by their mutual hatred for the US and its economic sanctions that have crippled both the governments in Tehran and Caracas.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon, has been welcomed by the Maduro regime, who has rolled out the red carpet so the extremists can ‘operate freely’, according to the Miami Herald.
In 2021, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wrote an op-ed for the newspaper, urging the Biden administration that Hezbollah’s presence in Venezuela posed a ‘grave threat’ to the United States.
The two international pariahs have been chummy since former communist dictator Hugo Chavez lead Venezuela from 1999-2013.
After Chavez died of cancer, his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro, took the countries’ relationship to the next level.
Under Madro’s illegitimate rule (he remained in power despite losing elections in 2018 and 2023 in what’s been called the ‘mother of all electoral frauds‘) the South American nation ‘become a forward operating base in the Western Hemisphere for Iranian forces,’ Bush wrote.
Two of the 19 individuals arrested during the Oct. 19 raid at the Palatia Apartments in San Antonio where authorities say Tren de Aragua had been operating
At least four of the people arrested on October 5 in San Antonio have been confirmed as gang members
(L) Victor Avila is a retired Supervisory Special Agent with ICE-HSI U.S. Immigration and Customs (R) Rolando Vazquez is an immigration attorney in Miami, Florida and has strong ties to the Venezuelan community in the US
Tren de Aragua gang tattoos (pictured above) were part of a Department of Homeland Security bulletin that was recently shared with federal agents
As DailyMail.com first reported in 2023 when we broke the story about TdA arriving in the US, Maduro’s soldiers went to cities across America, carrying out his orders.
‘Think of them as the soldiers for these regimes,’ Avila added.
‘These are the guys who are actually on the ground carrying out the orders of whatever the regime wants to do. Is it going to be a terrorist attack? Is it going to be just murdering young girls and raping them?’
Under orders from the Maduro regime, Tren de Aragua got to work, establishing itself in the US while making money for their bosses back home.
TdA followed a model it repeated in several US cities of taking over apartment complexes in cities like Aurora, Colorado where they took over at least four rental properties.
‘I believe that they’re setting up their network right now. These guys are setting up faster than MS-13 did. They’re getting into these apartment complexes and what they’re doing is they’re starting with prostitution,’ John Fabbricatore, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Colorado told DailyMail.com.
TdA has taken over at least four apartment buildings in the Denver area, exploiting and terrorizing their migrant neighbors.
‘Prostitution is a big money-maker, and the thing with prostitution is that it brings guys in that they can then sell dope to,’ Fabbricatore explained.
‘These guys come in, they meet these Johns and shake them down. See if they want to buy drugs. They’ve started with moving these girls through, and if you go in these apartments, you’ll see these young girls. It’s bad.’
The Aurora model was copied and pasted in four apartment complexes in San Antonio, Texas and likely many other American cities.
San Antonio’s police chief warned of TdA members who were caught wearing red-colored clothing.
‘Red is the color of Maduro’s political party. That’s why TdA wears red,’ Vazquez shared.
When Trump took office in January, his administration promised to arrest criminal migrants as part of the largest mass deportation plan the Republican campaigned on.
At least 236 TdA members have been arrested in raids across the nation, according to Immigrant and Customs Enforcement.
