“There are homicides of a severity that we have not seen before in the history of the country. “I’m talking about dismemberment, torture and burying people alive.”
This is how prosecutor Mario Carrera described to Tele13 Radio the crimes for which Los Gallegos is being persecuted, the gang that since this week has been involved in what has been considered the most important trial in the history of organized crime in Chile.
The 38 defendants – 34 Venezuelans and four Chileans – face charges of qualified homicide, kidnapping, possession of weapons and drug trafficking, and are considered a cell of the Aragua Trainthe Venezuelan mega-band that in recent years turned Chile into a large center of operations, the largest after its country of origin, according to Chilean police officials.
El Tren is, in fact, the “first transnational criminal group” that the Chilean Justice has faced and one of the causes of violence in a country that has seen the number of homicides increase in recent years.
The Prosecutor’s Office even attributes the death of the ex-military dissident from Venezuela to the group Ronald Ojedaand the very existence of the Aragua Train has been the cause of diplomatic dispute with the government of Caracas, which went so far as to deny the existence of the mega-gang, something that Chile, one of the countries that suffers the most from the group’s violence, considered a “ insult”.
But how was it established, what has been and is its presence in the country and how did the Chilean justice system begin to face a crime that it had never faced before?
To understand it, we must first go back to another court case.
Mariana’s death
Mariana (not her real name) collapsed shortly after crossing the border between Pisiga, in Bolivia, and Colchane, in northern Chile, more than 3,600 meters above sea level.
They had walked for around 40 minutes, enduring low temperatures, in the midst of strong winds and rain, through desert terrain and with inadequate clothing. She was traveling with her 5-year-old son, her mother, a minor brother and 50 other foreigners.
When the police tried to help her, the 32-year-old Venezuelan migrant was already dead.
His case was reported, without further details, as one of the five deaths of migrants that occurred in the first quarter of 2021, when they were trying to cross through irregular steps into Chile.
But behind her death there is something more than the physical wear and tear of a young mother. Mariana and her family are part of the 11 cases of victims of the Aragua Train that appear in the accusation presented in March 2022 against 12 members of the criminal organization for Raúl Arancibia Cerdawho was then regional prosecutor of Tarapacá, in northern Chile.
“It is the first organization (the Aragua Train) that meets all the characteristics of transnational organized crime (…) to be formalized in the country (Chile),” says the accusation document to which BBC Mundo had access.
Former regional prosecutor Arancibia assured that, at least until the moment he formalized the document, in 2022, “Chile was oblivious to this type of crime.”
But how did such a young criminal group – with less than 10 years of existence –, commanded from inside a prison in a country more than 4,700 kilometers away, manage to establish itself with such strength and ease in Chilean territory?
The causes of its expansion
Migration appears as a first factor.
Today there are more than half a million Venezuelans registered in Chile, although the figure could be double, due to the large number of people who have entered through informal channels.
Mariana’s family is among thousands of victims of migrant trafficking, and her story combines some of the variables that explain how the Aragua Train settled in Chile and turned this country into its “second home,” as confirmed to BBC Mundo by a official from the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) who investigated the group between 2021 and 2023 and who preferred not to give his name.
At the beginning of 2021, when the impact of the covid-19 pandemic still kept several borders closed and the situation of Venezuelans was worsening in their host countries, Edgar, a brother of Mariana who lived in Chile, hired the services of a alleged travel agency to transport four members of his family from Colombia to Iquique, on the northern border of the southern country, as reported in the accusation formalized by prosecutor Arancibia.
Edgar agreed to pay US$2,400 for his relatives to join him. He paid US$600 dollars for each one: Josefina, his mother; Juan Carlos, his minor brother; Mariana, his 32-year-old sister; and José, his 5-year-old nephew, Mariana’s son. (All names are fictitious; in the indictment they are identified only by initials)
The family group began the journey at the beginning of March 2021.
But when they arrived in Tumbes, in Peru, the men who were transporting them demanded US$80 more per person to continue the trip to Lima, and US$250 per person to reach Colchane, in Chile. So Edgar transferred another US$1,360.
At that point he had already realized that there was no such travel agency. They were in the hands of coyotes from the Aragua Train, an organization that from Venezuela has already expanded to at least six countries in Latin America.
On the night of March 22, 2021, after staying hidden for a couple of days at the España Hotel in Pisiga, Bolivia, Edgar’s relatives began the journey to cross the border and reach Chile.
At the head of the “expedition” were three men who, according to the accusation, were identified by their nicknames: “Star” (Carlos González Vaca), who has been identified as one of the leaders of the Aragua Train in Chile; “Zeus” (Zeus Velasquez Aquino) and “Eagle” (Juan José Trejo Varguilla). All of Venezuelan nationality and members of the mega-gang, according to the investigation carried out by Chilean authorities.
They were the ones who gave the instructions and exposed the migrants “to extreme conditions,” putting the “physical integrity and lives” of everyone at risk, reads the document prepared by the Tarapacá region prosecutor’s office.
Shortly after crossing the border, Mariana began to feel bad and her mother asked alias Águila for help, who hit the young woman for feeling bad. As a result, she fainted and ended up dying on Chilean soil.
“At least since 2021, this transnational criminal organization has operated in the Tarapacá region, linked to the Venezuelan Mega Gang, the Aragua Train, whose cell (…) has settled in various cities in the region (…) as well as “It has spread to other parts of the country (…)”, concludes the accusation.
The three coyotes, among others, were arrested in March 2022.
The case is currently being prepared for the start of trial. There are 12 defendants, including Carlos González Vaca, alias “Star”.
Considered the leader of the first Train cell identified and dismantled in Chile, the Prosecutor’s Office requests for him two sentences of qualified life imprisonment, a sentence of perpetual reclusion and 125 years in prison for crimes such as kidnapping with homicide, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, drug trafficking and migrant trafficking, among others.
The outbreak, the pandemic and the economy
“We believe that the arrival of the Aragua Train has to do with taking advantage of this migration that occurred from Venezuela to Chile,” he explained to BBC Mundo. Mauro Mercado Andaurnational head against Organized Crime of the Investigative Police (PDI) From Chile.
“The person who emigrates across different borders often has few economic resources and the need to quickly reach their destination country. The criminal group takes advantage of the need of migrants to do their illicit businesses, seduces them and even assigns them minor tasks,” he added.
But there are other elements that explain why Chile was the terrain chosen by the band to settle.
On the one hand, it coincides with the social outbreak of 2019“at a time when we had other focuses of interest that we were addressing,” Mercado Andaur acknowledged, pointing to the coronavirus pandemic.
And the health emergency forced a change in the dynamics and operation of the security forces – says the police officer – who had to deal with problems related to the disease while neglecting tasks inherent to their functions.
Likewise, Chile was one of the first countries in the region to have vaccines available and that attracted many people looking for quality health services.
“We had to Google it”
Arancibia, the former prosecutor of Tarapacá, said that the first time he heard about the Aragua Train was in December 2020, when two Peruvian women were detained while trying to enter ketamine, a hallucinogenic drug, into Chile.
“They explained that they had been forced to transport the drugs by people from the Aragua Train. Until that moment we did not know anything about a Venezuelan mega-band, nor about a prison in Tocorón (in Venezuela). We had to search for it on Google,” Arancibia said.
Although in the end they verified that the women were lying and that they had not been forced by any criminal group, the fact paved the way for the first investigation into the Aragua Train in Chile. “They let us know what was happening.”
By then, Chilean authorities had already noticed changes in criminal dynamics in the northern border regions and the appearance of new crimes without being clear about the causes: more sexual exploitation of foreigners; trafficking of unconventional substances, extortion; more homicides and migrant trafficking.
Although there had historically been organized crime activity on that border between Chile and Bolivia, there were no groups, neither local nor foreign, that exercised control over illicit actions and imposed themselves with violence as the Aragua Train did.
“They found it easy to take over territories. They took almost unpopulated areas to establish their businesses. They also began to offer services, such as transferring migrants from one border to another, providing security to businesses or falsifying the identity documents that the Chilean authorities give to migrants,” Mercado Andaur explained.
All this was easier in Chile, among other things, due to the absence of other organized crime groups or criminal competitors.
“Historically our criminal groups have tended to evolve towards money laundering, but not towards controlling a territory by force. They also did not have great firepower. That is why they were easily subdued by foreign groups, such as the Tren de Aragua, and they ended up giving up space and submitting to them,” said Mercado Andaur, who admitted the presence of Colombian organizations and other countries.
Export of crimes
The ability to adapt and the extensive criminal portfolio of the mega-gang – some 20 crimes are attributed to it – also allowed it to establish itself in Chile with criminal activities that were not practiced by other groups, such as sexual exploitation.
“Prostitution is legal here, but there was no pimp. They brought her and now they control this crime in the country,” said the PDI official.
And to these factors is added that Chile has one of the most solid economies in Latin America, so “the country’s economic stability and the amount of money in circulation were very attractive,” Mercado Andaur emphasizes.
That’s why Larry Amauri Álvarez Nuñez, alias “Larry Changa”one of the leaders and creators of the Aragua Train, chose Chile to settle with his family, as revealed by officials from the PDI, Interpol and Colombian intelligence.
He arrived on a commercial flight from Caracas in 2018, he ran a food establishment in the Jockey Club, four blocks from the La Moneda Palace, and also had several commercial establishments. He settled in Santiago and managed to set up a drug trafficking and money laundering operation for the organization.
In 2022, when the first arrests of his companions occurred, he fled and today his whereabouts are unknown.
In the organization’s hierarchy he has almost the same rank as Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Warrior Boy”top boss of the Train, one of the most wanted men in Latin America.
“Now there are 70 people from the organization in prison,” said Mercado Andaur, who added that “the group began to fragment after the arrest of the leader (alias “Estrella”) and as a result of police action.”
“We do not deny that they continue to operate, but by being so exposed they have lost their protection networks. They have a small operation. However, we continue with high alert to prevent the cells of the Aragua Train, the first large transnational organized crime group in Chile, from being articulated.
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