MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is accused of crimes in much of Latin America and inside the U.S. President Trump recently cited an 18th-century wartime law to quickly deport more than 130 alleged members of the gang - this despite a federal judge's order to turn the planes around. Critics claim Trump is exaggerating the gang's power to reinforce his anti-immigrant narrative. Reporter John Otis has more.
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: In this working-class barrio of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, a neighborhood watch group has installed outdoor alarms. They can be activated when people come under threat.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALARM BLARING)
OTIS: Residents say that the main threat these days comes from the Tren de Aragua. It's a Venezuelan crime gang that expanded into Colombia and now controls drug sales and prostitution rings here. The gang also earns huge sums by extorting business owners.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Police gave NPR this recording of one alleged Tren de Aragua member threatening a Bogota store owner.
EDWIN GODOY: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Edwin Godoy, a fruit pulp wholesaler, says he and other merchants have received similar threats and that ignoring them can be fatal.
GODOY: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "People who refuse to pay extortion have been killed," Godoy says. "Gang members will show up and shoot them because that's how they operate."
Tren de Aragua, which means the Aragua train, was formed more than a decade ago in a prison in the central Venezuelan state of Aragua. By some accounts, its name was inspired by workers building a train connection between Aragua and the nearby city of Caracas. As Venezuela sank into its worst economic crisis in history and domestic crime became less lucrative, Tren de Aragua expanded to Colombia, Peru and Chile.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE INVESTIGATOR: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: This Colombian police investigator, who asked NPR to withhold his name out of fear for his safety, says that Tren de Aragua is far more ruthless than Bogota gangs.
Eventually, Tren de Aragua began operating in the U.S., which is home to over 900,000 Venezuelan migrants. Authorities blame the gang for a wave of robberies and homicides, including the killing of police officers. To go after the gang, Trump last week invoked an obscure 18th-century provision called the Alien Enemies Act that allows for the deportation of noncitizens during wartime. Although the U.S. is not at war, Trump sent more than 130 alleged Tren de Aragua members to a prison in El Salvador. Here's White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KAROLINE LEAVITT: These are heinous monsters - rapists, murderers, kidnappers, predators - who have no right to be in this country, and they must be held accountable.
OTIS: But analysts say the U.S. government has refused to identify the deportees and has offered zero evidence that they are actually Tren de Aragua members. Some appear to have been rounded up simply for having tattoos.
JEREMY MCDERMOTT: The FBI are basing this almost exclusively on tattoos, and Tren de Aragua do not have a tradition of tattoos. So I don't know who they're deporting.
OTIS: That's Jeremy McDermott, codirector of Insight Crime, which investigates Latin American criminal groups. Due to the arrest of many of its leaders in Latin America and the closure of the Venezuelan prison that served as the gang's base of operations, he says Tren de Aragua is much weaker than it used to be. Nowadays, McDermott adds, many Venezuelan criminals are freelancers with no links to the gang.
MCDERMOTT: The notion that Tren de Aragua is invading the United States as if there is some kind of cohesive, organized action - I'm afraid there is no evidence of that.
OTIS: But in Colombia, where there's growing frustration over an influx of 3 million Venezuelan migrants, some people applaud Trump's draconian deportation policies and wish their own government would do the same. Among them is Armando Vergara, a retired Colombian police officer who has received death threats from the Tren de Aragua.
ARMANDO VERGARA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "I agree with Trump," he says. "He's giving peace and security to his people."
For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Bogota, Colombia.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.