The arrest in Colombia of a leader of a faction of the Venezuelan mega-gang, Tren de Aragua, has highlighted the organization’s little-known role in the drug trade.
Colombian police arrested Carlos Antonio López Centeno, alias “El Pilo,” along with ten other Venezuelans in the municipality of Riohacha, La Guajira department, in northern Colombia, on March 9.
Investigations by Colombian police and prosecutors revealed that the group planned to pick up three tons of marijuana, which they planned to trade across the border into Venezuela. Police also seized several weapons, grenades, an armored vehicle and 10 kilos of marijuana during the arrest.
“This criminal group is directly linked to the Tren de Aragua, a criminal outsourcing organization that seeks to enter the country to smuggle drugs from the north of the country… to Venezuela,” said the Deputy Director General of the Colombian National Police, Nicolas Alejandro. Zapata Restrepo, during a press conference.
El Pilo was a known member of the gang. He was held in Tocorón, the infamous prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua that served as Tren de Aragua’s operations center until it was taken over by Venezuelan security forces in September 2023. From prison, he oversaw the coordination of the organization’s clandestine operations in Güiria, a coastal town in Venezuela’s northeastern state of Sucre.
InSight crime analysis
The exposure of Tren de Aragua’s activities on Colombian territory indicates that the gang’s criminal portfolio in the region is expanding, especially its involvement in large-scale drug trafficking.
Although authorities and intelligence reports accessed by InSight Crime confirm the gang’s involvement in drug trafficking, there have been no previous prosecutions, nor suggestions, that the gang is involved in trafficking such large quantities of drugs.
In Sucre, Tren de Aragua’s activities included monitoring ships smuggling people and drugs, extorting money from local merchants and producers, and tracking down victims of human trafficking.
A local lawyer, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, explained to InSight Crime that the group also provides security services to drug boats.
However, the discovery of the plan to traffic three tons of marijuana is a breakthrough in the criminal development of the gang, and is proof of its steps into the regional drug trade.
According to the 2023 anti-drug report of the National Anti-Drug Superintendence (Superintendencia Nacional Antidrogas – SUNAD), the Paria Peninsula in Sucre falls under the domain of the Tren de Aragua and has become an important maritime corridor for the transnational transfer of drugs originating in Colombia , especially from La Guajira.
Marijuana trafficking from Venezuelan shores has increased in recent years. In 2022, a 1.5-ton consignment of marijuana from Venezuela was seized in Martinique.
Main image: Security forces in La Guajira guard the weapons seized during the arrest of El Pilo and his accomplices. Source: Official X account (formerly Twitter) of the La Guajira Police.
