The Trump administration charged and arrested numerous members of Tren de Aragua and a splinter group that has allegedly established its own criminal enterprise within the United States.
Federal authorities charged more than two dozen individuals currently or formerly associated with Tren de Aragua (TdA), a designated terrorist organization, for sex trafficking, robbery, racketeering and other heinous crimes throughout the U.S., according to a Monday press release by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Prosecutors charged six people accused of being current TdA members and, in a separate indictment, charged 19 alleged members of Anti-Tren, a splinter faction primarily made up of former TdA associates.
“As alleged, Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang — it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence, engaged in human trafficking, and spread deadly drugs through our communities,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a prepared statement.
“Today’s indictments and arrests span three states and will devastate TdA’s infrastructure as we work to completely dismantle and purge this organization from our country,” Bondi continued.
Of the 27 defendants who have been charged, 16 were already in federal criminal, immigration or state custody and another five were arrested Sunday night and Monday in operations in New York State and other areas, according to the DOJ.
Sex trafficking loomed large in the indictment, with federal authorities describing an intricate operation in which gang members would allegedly smuggle women — referred to as “multadas” — from Venezuela to the U.S. to perform sex work in order to pay off their debts. In order to force compliance from multadas, gang members would allegedly threaten to kill them and their families, pistol whip them and perform other acts of assault and go as far as killing them, according to the unsealed indictments.
Gang members are also accused of trafficking a substance known as “tusi,” a pink powdery substance that includes ketamine. Authorities said the drug has become the gang’s “calling card.”
“Tren de Aragua is one of the most dangerous gangs in the country, and the [New York Police Department] has taken significant action to shut down their operations in New York City,” New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a prepared statement. “For the first time ever, TdA is being named and charged as the criminal enterprise that it is.”
“As alleged in the indictment, these defendants wreaked havoc in our communities, trafficking women for sexual exploitation, flooding our streets with drugs, and committing violent crimes with illegal guns,” Tisch continued.
The indictments and arrests mark the latest blow against TdA by the Trump administration, which has taken major strides to dismantle the criminal organization.
First established as a prison gang in 2013 in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, TdA has since ballooned into an international criminal enterprise with as many as 5,000 members. Officials have confirmed TdA presence in at least 15 states, and its network likely extends even further across the U.S.
Roughly 8 million Venezuelan nationals have fled their country under President Nicolas Maduro, a leftist autocratic leader who has overseen rampant inflation, economic turmoil and political repression. Many of these Venezuelan migrants ended up making their way to the U.S., largely by illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Customs and Border Protection data show.
Some of the Venezuelans reaching American soil have included TdA members or associates. A Department of Homeland Security report leaked in October 2024 indicated more than 600 foreign nationals residing in the U.S. may have ties to TdA and court documents submitted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March indicated more than 170 TdA members were on the agency’s non-detained docket list.
Upon entering office, President Donald Trump designated TdA and other high-profile gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, allowing the authorities more resources to better dismantle their operations.
Trump also invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a wartime authority, to quickly detain and deport TdA members and reached an agreement with El Salvador to house many of these deportees in the county’s newly-built mega-prison. However, these moves have been met with fierce resistance from Democrats and liberal groups, which has so far used the court system to block the administration from deporting more TdA members under AEA authority.
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