Venezuelan gangs that went underground during Trump‘s immigration crackdown could return to terrorize Americans after the capture of dictator Nicolas Maduro, officials warn.
After taking over apartment complexes where they ran child prostitution rings and drug dens, Tren de Aragua have largely been on the run since Trump took office.
However, federal officials fear sleeper cells made up of gang members could be awakened to carry out orders from what’s left of the Maduro regime as they try to stay in power.
Trump administration official and former ICE officer John Fabbricatore told the Daily Mail: ‘That’s something that local law enforcement and federal law enforcement is going to have to be aware of – that these guys could still be subversives in the area and controlled by that party.
‘There’s definitely a network within the US trying to destabilize the US and use these guys, but local law enforcement and federal law enforcement is well aware of it. They have good intelligence assets out, trying to stop anything before it happens.’
Reactivation could mean that, instead of lying low to evade police, gangsters would risk being caught in order to carry out attacks.
Maduro’s henchmen have been operating in the US since summer 2022, when they first entered the country through the nation’s southern border.
Members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang turned international criminal organization, came to America under the direction of Maduro and his regime, carrying out the dictator’s orders and unleashing a wave of crime from Miami to New York City.
The Daily Mail was the first news organization to report on the gang’s presence in the US, revealing who they are, how they were operating in American cities they had infiltrated, and their ties to Maduro’s illegitimate government and global terrorism.
Tren de Aragua became a household name in August 2024 when footage of them storming an apartment unit in Aurora, Colorado, went viral. Later, authorities revealed the Venezuelan gang had control over the entire apartment complex – called Edge of Lowry
By early 2025, Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) has spread to nearly half the states in the nation. Since Pres. Donald Trump’s crackdown, it’s unclear where TdA remains operational so many of its members have gone into hiding
TdA, as the group is known to law enforcement, have been arrested in droves under the Trump administration.
However, members are still operating in most of the big cities where they had strongholds, such as Denver, Dallas and New York.
‘They’ve gone kind of underground a little bit, right now, not being so open,’ Fabbricatore added.
‘People still believe there are some hanging out in some of the [apartment complexes].
‘It’s just right now, they’re kind of lying low because the heat is definitely on them. The prostitution and the drug-running is still there.’
The mob became a household name in August 2024, when a video of the thugs storming an apartment in a Denver suburb went viral.
Officials in Aurora, Colorado, admitted the mob had taken over four apartment complexes in the area. However, sources revealed to the Daily Mail that the Maduro thugs had control of many more rental properties.
‘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 told this publication in September 2024.
‘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.’
Tren de Aragua gang tattoos (pictured above) were part of a Department of Homeland Security bulletin that was shared with federal agents in 2024
Police arrested 19 people in connection with Tren de Aragua activity in San Antonio Saturday morning
At least four of the people arrested Saturday have been confirmed as gang members
TdA copied and pasted their Aurora business model in San Antonio, Texas, taking over four complexes there, as exclusively reported by the Mail in October 2024.
After Trump took over in January 2025, federal and local law enforcement began cracking down on the organization.
‘There were some big investigations in Colorado, there were over 100 TdA members arrested in 2025. That’s significant when you go back and count all the names,’ Fabbricatore said.
US Border Patrol sources also explained that since the number of migrant crossings has dropped, they aren’t seeing the same number of TdA gangsters coming into the US like they did during the Biden years.
‘We mostly encounter them at checkpoints,’ one agent told Daily Mail of the TdA arrests made at Border Patrol checkpoints within the US.
He added that most of those Tren de Aragua members ‘crack’ when questioned by law enforcement, admitting to their ties to the infamous group.
‘There’s been a lot of arrests in trying to break the gang open, but just because we’re not hearing a lot about them in the media, doesn’t mean that they’ve left,’ Fabbricatore stated.
The DOJ released these images in 2020, as it charged top members of the Venezuelan government, including Maduro, with being drug traffickers
In the superseding indictment, US prosecutors allege Venezuela’s government trafficked tons of cocaine into the US. The feds claim the ‘Cartel de los Soles,’ which Madro leads, used an ‘air bridge’ to move the drugs into the US
Maduro stayed as president of Venezuela despite stealing two elections, most recently in 2023
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, third left, reviews an honor guard as he is accompanied by his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, left, during his official welcoming ceremony at the Saadabad Palace in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 11, 2022
Now that Maduro has been captured, his followers could strike from within the US.
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 told the Daily Mail.
‘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.
As pandemic travel restrictions were lifted around the globe, many Venezuelans looked to the US as an escape, with nearly eight million people abandoning their homes for other countries, according to the United Nations.
As Venezuelans poured over the US’s southern border, TdA members mixed in with asylum-seekers, posing as refugees.
Since Venezuela and the US do not have diplomatic relations, the two nations don’t share criminal records – meaning there was no way to properly vet Venezuelans arriving at the international boundary.
Criminal history would come back clean even for the worst Venezuelan criminals who crossed into the US, as they were checked by US Border Patrol agents.
‘What Maduro did was send them over here for the purpose of expanding their operations and terrorizing and attacking US citizens,’ Vasquez said.
‘In my opinion, what Maduro did was an act of war. He sent his agents here to attack us.’
As the Daily Mail first reported in 2023, when the TdA arrived in the US, Maduro’s soldiers went to cities across America, carrying out his orders.
‘Think of them as the soldiers for these regimes,’ Trump Administration official Victor 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 its bosses back home.
However, TdA is unlike other mobs in that they are known to work with other cartels and not focus on strict rivalries.
It’s possible that’s what’s left of TdA’s structure in the US today might have already been absorbed by Mexican drug cartels or other criminal syndicates, Fabbricatore said.
‘Morphing is something that’s more likely to happen,’ he explained.
‘These guys are gangsters. That’s what they know how to do. Will TdA still be around in a few years…probably not, but its members will probably be parts of other gangs by that time.’
