Federal authorities said Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua has spawned an equally violent rival called “Anti-Tren,” as inner turmoil is causing the transnational crime syndicate to fracture within its New York City branch.
Investigators with the Department of Homeland Security said “substantial intra-gang conflicts’ are creating the volatile rift within Tren de Aragua, which has terrorized U.S. cities from coast to coast via kidnappings, theft rings and brutal slayings.
“TdA members have engaged in numerous shootings and murders and much of this violence is driven by hostilities between TdA and ‘Anti-Tren’ members,” reads a federal criminal complaint against reputed gang leader Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 26, who was arrested during a raid in the Bronx last month.
Officials said Mr. Zambrano-Pacheco joined last summer’s caught-on-camera siege of an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, which catapulted TdA into the public consciousness and prompted then-presidential nominee Donald Trump to say he would “liberate Aurora” if he returns to the White House.
The gang established a foothold in 16 states in the year-plus it has been in the U.S., according to authorities, with official mentions of Anti-Tren being the first signs of dysfunction within the crime group.
The White House said this month it has arrested nearly 200 members of the gang that originated in a Venezuelan prison.
The Washington Times has reached out to Homeland Security Investigations about Anti-Tren’s presence in New York City, what crimes they are linked to and how many members of the rival gang there are.
But determining who is and isn’t a part of TdA’s aggressive new adversary is a challenge for authorities because the gangsters frequently change allegiances, investigators said.
“A gang member’s self-identification as TdA or ‘Anti-Tren’ can be fluid and the same gang member may switch between two affiliations depending on the time and context,” federal court documents note.
Gregg Etter, a gang researcher who has studied Tren de Aragua’s expansion in the States, says Anti-Tren seems to be confined to TdA’s cell in the Big Apple.
Mr. Etter attributes the new gang’s genesis to a likely feud because its name denotes opposition to the main Tren de Aragua group, as opposed to identifying a neighborhood or street.
The gang researcher says the split should give law enforcement an idea about how much TdA has grown in New York City. Gangs typically only break off once they are large enough for egos to clash safely among newly formed alliances.
Mt. Etter said shifting loyalties and allegiances inside a typical street gang pose headaches for police.
“It becomes a confusing problem. You’ve got one gang list, and then all of a sudden you’ve got two different gangs and two different leaders in two different locations — your workloads just doubled following them,” Mr. Etter told The Times. “Sometimes the breakup is not peaceful.”
The researcher says that pressure from the White House to target TdA with immigration sweeps and police raids already is weakening the gang’s grip on American cities.
Deporting Tren de Aragua members has been one of the highlights of the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration.
Earlier this month, 23 TdA gangsters were sent on two separate flights to the U.S. naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. set up a sprawling, temporary camp for illegal border crossers.
Among the deported on those flights were a convicted killer and another gangster wanted in Venezuela on charges of robbery, attempted homicide and escaping from a jail, according to the New York Post.
Tren de Aragua members were also the first 10 migrants flown to Guantanamo Bay this month as officials set up a short-term camp to hold 30,000 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.
“Where are you going to put Tren de Aragua before you send them all the way back?” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the time. “How about a maximum-security prison at Guantanamo Bay, where we have the space?”
Sending Tren de Aragua members to be imprisoned in El Salvador — a budding ally to the Trump administration — is another option for law enforcement.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele Feb. 3 and brokered a deal in which El Salvador agreed to hold deported illegals who are convicted criminals in its 40,000-capacity mega-prison.
“His commitment to accept and incarcerate criminals from any country, including from violent gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, will make America safer,” Mr. Rubio said, referring to a Salvadoran gang.
The flights to Guantanamo Bay are being done alongside massive enforcement sweeps in TdA hot spots.
Federal agents earlier this month said they “targeted for arrest” more than 100 TdA members during a raid at an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.
That comes after nearly 50 TdA members were arrested in January when authorities swarmed a makeshift nightclub near Denver. The warehouse-turned-nightclub was linked to the gang’s drug trafficking operation.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.