September 23, 2025 • 33 mins
Robert and James discuss the Trump administration's war on Tren de Aragua.
Sources:
Crossing Borders: The Evolution and Impact of Tren de Aragua | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University https://share.google/xnyZpnUILdcDrZep1
Debunking 3 Myths About Tren de Aragua https://share.google/TGwfFwu9ApWrOuU7N
Tattoos of deported Venezuelans don't necessarily signal gang affiliation, experts say https://share.google/PD8reoZTA8yDc7mA5
Tattoos of deported Venezuelans don't necessarily signal gang affiliation, experts say https://share.google/PD8reoZTA8yDc7mA5
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It could happen here a podcast where I just got
vaccinated and boy, howdy, the ship this year hits like
a fucking train.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
It does, I I go vaccinated, it's it's it's a
rough one this year.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh man, Yeah, fucking RFK Junior was right.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Broadcasting through the vaccine injury today.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, that's right. I've received my vaccine injury. I'm complaining
to the board. Oh man, I'm gonna nap after this.
But first, how about we talk about fucking trendy Aragua,
the fucking narco criminal group that President Trump is currently
justifying blowing up boats in the middle of international waters
as a result.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Of Yeah, it's great. It's a good thing that we
are now killing civilians in countries where we are not
at war with It's great.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This has been something Stephen Miller had been talking about
since the first Trump administration, you know, and had talked
with like back when the military was willing to push
back against Trump more. People would be like, what you
what the fuck are you talking about? We can't launch
strikes at just like random boats, and Steve Miller be like,
why not?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And now they're doing it?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, And this group, this criminal cartel out of Venezuela
has been the current justification. As we'll talk about, most
of what is said about this trendy Aragua by the
administration about you know, their role in smuggling drugs in
the United States is either just completely invented or massively exaggerated.
(01:36):
It is a really interesting group. They have a fascinating
like history. The literal meaning is train of Arugua. Sorry,
And it started out with like labor unions that were
working on a railway project. It was going to be
connecting central and western Venezuela together. And as has happened
in history, what started as like labor union organizing wound
(01:58):
up kind of morphing into a direct criminal activity.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
The guy who's generally credited as the founder, although that's
kind of flattening things a little bit, is Hector Guerrero Flores,
known as Nino Guerrero, and he he got put in
for seventeen years for murder and drug trafficking at this
prison called tokron Am I I am saying that, right, James, How.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Do we see to Coron Yeah, Sarenaxin. Yeah, there's a
little accent over the second. Oh, as you go up
with down up to Coron. Thank you, James.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And so this one of the things that's fun about
this is that this prison where they start loading these
guys up, becomes so heavily organized, and it eventually turns
from being like a prison in the traditional sense to
more being like a tiny independent city that the gang
is based out of.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It acted as their fortress.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
They established like nightclubs in it, and you know, luxury facilities,
and like leaders of the gang more or less came
and went as they pleased, went back to their families,
and it was not really what you'd think of as
a prison in the traditional sense for a lot of
these guys. For a while, a payment system was created
(03:07):
in order to like basically you would inmates would pay
for protection or for access to the nicer aspects of
the prison called the cause. And if you didn't pay,
you know, they had various ways of physically abusing you.
There's a good article in Small Wars Journal that talks
about the origins and the impact of this group, and
it quotes someone from inside the prison is saying, the
(03:28):
first time you don't pay, they shoot your wrist, the
second time your ankle, the third time, and you face
the death penalty. So, like you're talking like pretty traditional
criminal gang stuff, right, Yeah. So the journey of this
group from gang that's major in Venezuela to gang that's
kind of operating in larger and larger chunks of South
America followed a pretty natural path where they got involved
(03:51):
in more kinds of smuggling and more kinds of trafficking
over the years, started setting up operations in other parts
of South America Eca. But one of the things that
the gang has sort of done is you've got this
kind of process by which they have these local affiliates
who are not directly associated with the gang in like
(04:12):
the strict hierarchical sense, and that it's not literally the
gang sending an official into another state. It's more like
franchising is kind of the way things work, and you
have different local groups, some of whom are not even
connected in any way to the original organization, claiming a
line of descent in order to basically draft off of
that clout, you know, yeah, yeah, which is kind of
(04:35):
what you've seen increasingly, and this has led to a
situation where there's enough claims of trend being involved in
the United States and other countries that it looks a
lot like a larger and more centralized criminal organization than
it actually is in reality.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yeah, I think the state understands these things like many states, right,
like who like with a leader and a distinct authority
structure and like a direct command. That is not how
my understanding is that they operate, right because they are
not mini states there. They are a different entity to that.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, And what is your Because you've actually spent time
reporting and in Venezuela, when did you first become aware
of trend?
Speaker 4 (05:16):
I mean I became aware of like the fact that
there were armed gangs and criminals. I mean I was
robbed at gunpoint when I was in Venezuela, right, so
that may be aware that that there were people who
who did crime with weapons, But I wasn't aware really
of trend that I went until like maybe the twenty twenty.
I mean, I don't report on organized crime, nor do
(05:36):
I particularly follow it, right, But I take an interest
in Venezuelan affairs and as much as I've spent time there,
and I have like an affinity with the people, and
I understand that things are getting going from bad to
worse for them. Under their government. So so I took
an interest. I guess it was like, are you familiar
with a Naco Sobrinos affair? No, okay, Naco Sobrinos is
(05:57):
like narco nephews. I think they're actually step nephews of
Maduro if I recall correctly. It doesn't hugely matter. They're
like part of his family in a mediate and I
believe they lived in his compound. And they used like,
I don't want to make statements that are incorrect that
I believe they use a presidential hangar or runway to
fly a plane to Haiti, which the USDA alleges, and
(06:21):
it is most likely true that that that that plane
was stuffed full of cocaine.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Sure, many such cases, Yeah, many such cases.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
They believe they have diplomatic immunity, which they did not,
which I believe came as surprise to them at the
moment of their detention. And so at that point I
was like, shit, we can get onto this. How the
Trump administration has like basically alled to Venezuela as a
narco dictatorship. Certainly there is overlap between organized crime and
the state, right, it's because the state is so poor
(06:50):
and so corrupt. That inevitably you will see like overlap
between organized crime and the state.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So I guess right.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Whenever the knack of Sobrino's affair was I was like, okay,
I need any to sort of be aware of this.
And of course in my like coverage of immigration, you
hear of people mostly their talk is just not that
their life has been made hard by organized crime, if
I managed so much as their life has been made
hard by the government completely failing to provide services and
(07:20):
the complete collapse of the Venezuelan economy. You know, I'm
not going to ask about it explicitly, but if someone
mentions it, I sort of take note of it as
one of the reasons why people are leaving.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Would you bring up as a really good point, which
is that twenty fourteen is kind of when the most
recent Venezuelan economic crisis really kicked off. And two is
fourteen to twenty eighteen was a major period of growth
for trend and then twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two
is when they really started pushing up into and involving
themselves increasingly in Colombia and the United States as a
(07:50):
result of like the increased flow of Venezuelans out of
Venezuela and into other countries and eventually up to the
US and to some extent, And it's been since twenty
twenty two that the gang has really been pruned back,
you know, both as a result of the Venezuelan government
taking control of the prison again and like basically invading
it with the military in order to deny them access
(08:12):
to what had been like their primary centralized, like hub
of control, and also due to the fact that, like
after expansion into Columbia and Chile, both criminal organizations and
the governments of those countries increasingly pushed back against the organization, right, Yeah,
one of the reasons why they're being targeted. But also
one of the things that's like fundamentally bullshit about the
administration's description of what's happening is that we're very much
(08:37):
talking about a cartel that's on its back feet and
been on its back feet for the last several years
as the result of significant reversals in their business and
in their political situation.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah, I mean, Columbia has been the Columbian Civil War
is one of the longest running conflicts in the world.
But things have changed their substantially, right, in the last
five or seven years. You know, you have people from
the FOC disarming. You have the fracture of what was
previously their territory in some of who were previously their
(09:06):
militants into other groups, right, And so that has allowed
the state there to continue its conflict against what remains
of that and also to clamp down other groups. Right.
And evidently, like the flow of drugs, United States relies
on the complicity or inability to stop it of many states.
(09:28):
And yeah, we've seen like a concerted effort and also
like the attempts of the United States to stop smuggling.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
So, I guess if people aren't familiar, we should just
explain the US DHS, of which the United States Coast
Guard is part. I think a lot of people aren't
aware the Coast Guard is part of DHS claims a
universal jurisdiction or jurisdiction at least in areas where drugs
are being smuggled to the United States, Right, So the
US Coast Guard had a role to play in this
(09:57):
in the I guess interdiction is the word they would
use of drugs coming to the United States. I probably
haven't got data on this. In the last year or so.
But it certainly was the case that most drugs entering
the US entered through ports of entry as opposed to
like between ports of entry, right, like through the desert,
through the mountains, and so like these these boats, I
guess are not just to be clear that they're not
(10:19):
necessarily going to the United States, and most states are
not going to United States, and most states are going
to Mexico and then moving to the United States through
other methods. But like as the governments both south of
the United States and in the United States who adapted,
it's become harder and harder for those people, right, And
so it's become harder and harder for these criminal organizations
to make money off these drugs.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And that's led to, I mean a situation that one
of the things that they've been accused of being by
the Trump administration and internationally is essentially an agent of
the Maduro regime, right, And this is something that certainly
the Venezuelan government denies. This is not a thing where
I can you know, entirely give you this is exactly
what's happened. But it seems accurate to say that as
an organization, as their their actual like control and power
(11:04):
have been eroded, they have been utilized increasingly as a
way to, for example, deal with like dissidents who are
hostile to the Madeiro regime right as a as a
deniable asset. In particular, there's been cases that are reasonably
well documented of dissidents against the Venezuelan regime in Chile
and Trendy Aragua being used as like assassins to to
(11:25):
take out dissonance in foreign countries in a deniable manner. Right, Yeah,
And I mean it looks to me like this has
kind of increased as their actual ability to directly control
things and directly contest the regime as a power center
has been eroded.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, it's kind of a classic like I wouldn't say
that like ideologically aligned, right, but sometimes their interests aligned, Yeah,
to be clearly, Like trend are one of the sort
of organized crime institutions in Venezuela, but by.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Five only one, right, you have, yeah, Trendel. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
For example, you have these other groups who have also
been active in anti government protests, especially since the I'm
going to use that quote unquote election here in July
of last year, right, where electoral fraud is widely alleged
and I documented that in My Daddy and series if
people want to listen to that. But it's not like
these two are lot in lockstep. But yeah, like we
(12:22):
can understand that sometimes that the interest might align and
in those areas may be beneficial for the regime to,
like you say, to use them as a deniable asset.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right, which does not.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Like one of the things that's kind of most frustrating
is hearing them described as central to the smuggling of
fentanyl into the United States, which, like, even in kind
of the most elaborate version of this group being utilized
by the Venezuelan government is fanciful, right, Like, because Venezuela
just doesn't have that much to do with the smuggling
(12:55):
of fentidel into the United States. Yeah, Like, Venezuela and
Venezuelan criminal organizations just aren't that involved in that process.
That's not where it's coming from, right. Yeah, And we'll
talk some more about fentanyl, but first, you know what's
kind of like fentanyl advertising. We're back and we're talking
(13:25):
about fentanyl. Well, we're talking about like these claims because
that's the justification for why we need to airstrike these boats.
The most recent of which we know was boarded by
another government and had drugs on board. It removed before
it was struck.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, and we simply have no idea, no way to verify.
I have no way to verify what the administration is
claiming about these boats.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
We're just seeing boats get blown up.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
But yeah, and everybody who's on that boat is no dead,
so there's not many many people to contradict that story.
Should we explain like the usual coast Guard process.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
For in addiction? Yeah, I think that's probably good idea.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
So generally, right, what the US Coast Guide is going
to do is they will have these large vessels from
which they will launch smaller vessels and helicopters to intercept craft, right,
like the most kind of I guess like famous charismatic
other like Colombian like they call them Narco subs.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
There's their semi submarines.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Actually that they're not like fully submersed, but they that
much of the vessel is submerged. What the Coast Guard
would normally do, to my understanding, is to send a
vessel to intercept them, right, be it a helicopter or
a boat, or probably both in most cases I would
imagine tell them to stop.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
If they don't stop, the Coastguard will have like a
sniper who will shoot out the engine of the craft.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
They will then board, they will entertain the people. They
will obviously confiscate any drugs that they find, and then
they will take those people back to their vessel where
they're detained, and then they'll be tried in the US. Right,
and then they would normally it's they can't kind of
scoop up all these ships that they've intercepted or semi
subs or whatever, so they will normally destroy those and
(15:05):
scuttle them so they sink to the bottom of the ocean.
I don't know how many cases they've done this in,
but that would be the normal procedure for Coast Guard.
It gets pre twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It's got to be fun being a fish near one
of those vessels, yeah, fishing.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Getting yeah yeah, yeah. I don't know what they do
with all the cac And sometimes they bring all the
cocaine back for a photo op. You see that sometimes
yeah yeah, yeah, that looks good. Yeah yeah, it's nicely packaged,
says cocaine or fentanyl on the side or whatever. That
is my understanding of what was done previously. The strikes
in the last month have been extremely different, right, Yeah,
(15:44):
and we're looking at I think fourteen people killed so
far that we've had confirmed, although those numbers are certainly
higher than the when you're hearing them, right, because we've
just had another strike in the last day or so
that I don't think we have exact numbers on how
many people were involved.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
They use, from what I understand, drones from Special Operations
Command to do these strikes, right, which in itself is
quite unusual. And then the strikes themselves consisted of did
they say what I guess it looks like a hell
fire missile, but I don't know if they've said.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
That looked like health fires to me on the videos
I've seen.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Yeah, it's not exactly like high DEPF video, but you
see them striking like it looks kind of like a
like a it's a speedboat, right, like it's a surface vessel.
It's not a not a semi sub or a submarine.
It's unclear like what has happened before, at least I
haven't seen any reporting or what happened before, like whether
they got in order to stop I think in one
(16:37):
case they had turned around right having noticed a drone
and begun returning towards the coast, towards Venezuela, I guess,
And they were still struck. And it appears that in
at least one case, the drone struck them again, like
it hit them once and then returned for a second
run to hit I guess the survivors.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And you know, there's a couple of facts that go
alongside what we actually know and versus what the administration's claiming.
About eighty percent of people involved in the smuggling of
illegal drugs into the United States are US citizens, and
then of the remaining twenty ish percent, a chunk of
those are resident legal aliens, and the chunk are a
(17:21):
mix of undocumented people, non citizens, or people whose status
is unknown or extra diited aliens. Right like, this is
based on the United States Sentencing Commissions data from twenty
twenty four, and about eighty five percent of drugs that
are brought into the United States are smuggled in at
ports of entry. And this makes complete sense if you
think about it, in part because it's pretty easy to
(17:43):
track when you've just got like a boat trying to
smuggle stuff into the country illicitly and the people who
are on that boat. If the art citizens have no
right to enter the country inherently, as opposed to citizens
who do have a right to enter, and ports of
entry where there's a shitload of you want to heighten
plane sight with this stuff? Right, Like it just makes sense,
Like would you rather if you were smuggling a huge
(18:06):
amount of illegal shit? Would you rather be on your
own with a van or a vehicle full of very
illegal drugs or would you rather be like hiding amongst
the billions of tons of shit that gets taken to
this country every single year, right, Yeah, which is why
just the reality of the data is so completely different
than the administration makes it out to be. And obviously,
(18:28):
foreign criminal organizations are heavily involved in the smuggling of
illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl in the United States, but we're
talking primarily about like the Sinaloa cartel and then different
criminal organizations involved in the smuggling a fentnyel out of China, right,
which is where a lot of fentanyl comes from.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
As opposed to.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Again, Venezuela, the government here is going for low hanging fruit.
I think as The conclusion I'm driven to just every
time I read about this is that, like, there doesn't
seem to be a better reason for focusing on this organization,
which really is just not that involved in crime in
the United States nearly to the that groups like the
scene lower Cartel are.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, I mean, it offers a chance to demonize Venezuelan people, right,
and Venezuelan people made up a large number of the
people who came to the United States to seek asylum
under Biden, because like, if we do believe that these
like the word in Spanish would be like a megabandas
like mega gangs are a serious threat to the well
being of people in the United States, imagine how much
(19:24):
more of a threat they are to the well being
a people in Venezuela, right, Right, And that combined with
a government which objectively sucks and which also uses extra
judicial violence, right, including in its battle against these gangs,
leads people to want to leave and when they come here,
the United States, especially the Trump Recheme, has been engaged
(19:47):
in this demonization of migrants. Right, this offers a very
convenient narrative for that to say that these people are
bringing crime here. The vast majority of them are doing
the exact opposite. They are coming here because the state
in Venezuela has extorted them, and slash or non state
(20:08):
actors in Venezuela have extorted them. The vast bulk of
the complaints I hear from Megan for Venezuela about the state,
they have no interest other than working hard and receiving
like a decent living wage for that. Yeah, every Venezuelan
person I spoke to almost burned on when I ask
what their American dream is, tell you that their American
(20:28):
dream is to have a job that pays them enough
to feed their family. Right, Like, we have next to
no evidence of organized crime coming into the United States
through the asyluentists, and there are sure there will be,
like I would imagine a fraction of a single percent
of cases, sure in which that is the case. But
it's being used against all these Venezuelan people right as
(20:50):
we've seen. And I guess I a should just clarify that,
like one thing about these megabandas that they're not like maras, right,
like so like MS thirteen being a mara, right, like
a gang in which members are identified by certain tattoos.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Oh my god, Yes, this is tattoos and emojis, yes.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah, yeah, again, Like I understand that that is a
thing that happens in some cases, but that is not
a thing that is common to these gangs.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
No, it's it's certainly not common to trendy Araguas. Right,
It's like the use of tattoos. There's not even widespread
agreement among experts as to whether or not there's any
sort of centralized, US based hierarchy for the group, right right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
The tattooing is just as it is in the United
States and that sort of places around the world. A
very common practice in Venezuela that the people do for
as many reasons as there are people right to include
because they love their mum, because they love their kids,
because they're like a football team, because they are religious,
et cetera, et cetera. That is why people get tattoos.
It is not to indicate membership in any organization.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
No, And this is this is something that's verified. Again,
Like one of the leading experts on trend is Jana Risquez,
who wrote a book The trendy Aragua, The Gang that
revolutionized organized crime in Latin America. She specifically told in
otisis Telemundo during an interview. Venezuelan gangs are not identified
by tattoos. To be a member of one of these
Venezuelan organizations, you don't need a tattoo. You can have
(22:20):
no tattoos and still be part of it. You can
also have a tattoo that matches other members of the organization.
So like again, there's groups and different sort of because
this is a very bottom up sort of organization, which
is often the case with criminal groups, where like they
will you know, there will be money being passed in
one direction or another, but there's not tight control being
exercised in a top down manner. You can find groups
(22:41):
that have tattoos in common, but it's not a centralized
thing that the organization does.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yeah, and like the Venezuelan state, to be clear, is
extremely violent. They have like a special armed police which
deals with gangs and organized crime that kills hundreds of people.
It would be unwise to be going about in the
street with it like I am a member of a
certain gang. Right, tattoo right, And so unless you plan
to live in some area where where you feel completely
(23:06):
safe from the state, that would be a very unwise thing.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
To do.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, and we'll talk some more about things that are unwise,
but first it would be wise for you to buy
these products. We're back, and I want to quote from
a recent piece in The Guardian on the US law
(23:31):
enforcement claiming that emoji's signal membership in this organization. Man
This is by Sam Levin and man Vy Singh from September,
a couple of days ago. The first reference to emojis
in the records comes from a July twenty twenty four
situational awareness alert from the n WHITPD, which was distributed
to law enforcement across the country and warned of trendy
Araguaf threats in New York City. In WYPD Intelligence Encounter
(23:54):
Terrorism Bureau has observed members of TDA in New York
City using social media messaging platforms such as Instagram and
Talk to depict the legiance to the gang. The other
said TDA members often utilize emojis such as trains, Ninja's,
slot machines, double swords, shields, ogre, face mask and crowns.
Members also use South American slang and Arabic language terms
to mask their identities on social media. They've cited the
(24:15):
NYPD tattoos featuring Michael Jordan, fucking ninja emojis. You're tolding
me that that's that's a TDA sybol. That's not just
something people use.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Like, yeah, man, this is like, I mean, there's a
large Arab or population of Arab descent in Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
That's where these slangs come from.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Like, people use emojis, particularly in this context because their
education has not been the best, right, Like, the access
to to literacy is less than it would be in
other contexts. So like sometimes they use emoji, so they
just use them because it's funny. But like the notion
of like and yeah, people will use slang. People will
spell shit the way they say it. Sometimes when I'm
(24:52):
talking to Venezuelan people, you know, if I'm if I'm
talking to a source and they I sometimes I have
to read it aloud to help me understand what they're saying.
That it's very common to people in Venezuela. There's nothing
to do with being a member of a gang whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, and I mean there's a lot of that in
terms of like the fact that the Chicago Bulls and
Michael Jordan are popular among immigrants, right, Like that that's
particularly Venezuelan immigrants, and a lot of it comes from like, well,
a lot of Venezuelan immigrants tend to like these things
in media, tend to like these musicians and get tattoos
(25:27):
that reference these things in popular culture or these things
you know that different Venezuelan artists have put out. And
that's I mean, it's certainly not a sign that like, oh,
these things signal membership and this criminal organization and more
they're just targeting Venezuelans and these things are more common
among Venezuelans, but not certainly not exclusive to that group.
When you when you're saying that like a Michael Jordan's
(25:49):
shirt or tattoo is a symbol of membership in a criminal,
criminal organization, well, I guess like a third of my
high school were criminals. I mean they were, but not
in this way.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Yeah, ye, Like these are very common, like the Jordan logo,
I don't know what it's called, the jumping Jordan logo.
Not a big sports where fan myself, but like, yeah,
it's very common. It's because people buy fake designer apparel
all the time. Like you will also see people tons
of people with Louis Viton items. They're not real. That
does not indicate membership in any gang. It's just kind
(26:21):
of an aspirational thing that you can buy any almost
anywhere in Venezuela because no one's going down there to
enforce copyright laws. Like it's not it doesn't indicate any affiliation.
Sometimes it indicates like an interest with the United States, right,
like like that these are where these things come from,
and this is a place where these people would like
to go. I also saw a guy cross a Darien
(26:42):
glap in Nike Alpha flys, like the super Fast Marathon
running shoes with the giant carbon plated spring. Like this
is not like indication of anything other than that, like
this person thought those were cool and they purchased them. Yeah,
are you familiar with this Cartel de lo Solis thing?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No?
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Okay, so like the Cartel del Solis, the Cartel of
the Sun of the Sun's I guess it's another organization
which the US is alleging that Maduro is is like
head of right that, like it's a vertically organized organization
and that like Maduro is literally the chief of it,
(27:27):
And I guess I just want to say, like the
same shit applies, right there are gangs all over Karrakas,
as well as names we haven't mentioned. What you've got
here is state failure, right Like in Venezuela, the state
has failed to provide people with services and it does
not always enjoy a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
You also have massive corruption, So it is absolutely the
(27:49):
case that people smuggling drugs through Venezuela will be able
to buy off certain officials, right, particularly like military commanders
and people who have control over transit and border areas.
It doesn't imply like a vertical structure per se. To
be clear, like I don't think my Dado should be
in charge of Venezuela. I think that my duadal regime
(28:11):
is bad for Venezuela and bad for the world. But
like it's very oversimplified to see it like straight up
as like a narco regime, right that, Like, there is
more to it than that. This is the country that
hits on masses of oil. This is a country that
has been incredibly corrupt from an incredibly long time now,
and you're always going to see these organizations creeping into
(28:35):
the government. Right when the government can't even pay its
own people will guarantee them a decent and dignified quality
of life like. That doesn't mean that it is okay
to just kill like First and foremost, I would imagine
that if we go with the government story that the
boats that they struck were carrying drugs, right, it is
(28:58):
unlikely that people who are carrying those drugs or anything
other than poor desperate young men who wanted a chance
at a better life and or were intimidated into doing this, right,
And maybe some of them chose to do this because
they thought this was the way they could get money
and the progress in a place that does not for
them many opportunities. These are not the people who are
(29:20):
in any way like making the calls, making the decisions, right,
and so killing them isn't going to do very much
because there is a massive supply of poor desperate young
men in Venezuela, and it's not going to change anything
to kill fourteen fifteen of them, other than it will
obviously it's a tragedy for those families, right, there's people
(29:42):
who lose their children or whatever. Yeah, and so like,
I don't know until we solve the situation that life
is untenable for people in Venezuela, Yes, there will be
crime there, and yes, people from there will want to
come to the United States.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Both of those things make sense.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
That does not mean that people coming to the United
States are coming to the United States to do bad things.
The vast majority of them are coming to the United
States to escape bad things. We've had so much discourse
about Venezuelan people and crime, even in the you know,
this has begun, I think in Chicago in the Biden administration,
I have not seen journalists of whatever political stripe talk
(30:20):
to Venezuelan people about this. Right, Like, with very few exceptions,
it's very easy to find Venezuelan people, especially you know,
if you if you work at the border and you
do border reporting. But even still, you know, lots of
these Venezuelan people went to Denver, some of them went
to Chicago, some of them went to the Springs in Colorado,
(30:41):
many of them went to Texas. They went to all
kinds of places when they came to the United States. Right,
if you speak Spanish, it's not hard to find these
people and ask them what's it like in Venezuela, why
did you come here? And then perhaps you can you know,
establish a picture of yeah, it's pretty shit, right, people
work hard every day and don't make enough to feed
their family, if their kid is sick, if their elderly
(31:03):
parents can't work and need support, it's really hard to
do that. That is why they want to come to
the US. That is why often young men want to
come to the US right because the world as it
is gives them the highest level of economic opportunity, and
so the family will send them to the US such
as they can earn enough money and they hope one
day to bring their families here. Sometimes you also see
(31:25):
people bringing their very young children because they realize there's
no future for their children in Venezuela, so they make
the choice to try and come to somewhere which once
promised a future for hard working people and doesn't really anymore.
But like it just it pains me so much to
see this discussion of Venezuela without Venezuelan people, most of
(31:46):
whom I found to be wonderful, Like I spent a
good amount of time in Venezuela and even longer with
Venezuelan people, and they have a great affection for them,
like they've been nothing but kind to me, even now,
like a year after it's in the Darien Gap. I
get text all the time from Venezuelan people, the majority
of them not asking for help, just asking how I
(32:08):
am asking? Do I know what happened to the Bolivian girl?
Do I know what happened to the Zimbabwean women? Like
genuinely concerned, even amidst like a really shit situation for them,
concerned for the well being of other people. And I
just wish instead of talking about yeah, there are hundreds,
maybe thousands of Venezuelan people who are involved in moving
(32:32):
drugs to United States, we could talk about the millions
of people who just want to work hard and have
a decent life and who are being denied a chance
to do that at home, and are now being denied
a chance to do that here as well.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Well, I think that's about it for our episode today.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Until next time, folks, I don't know rest of luck
out there? Yeah it could happen.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from fool Zone Media, visit our website goolezonmedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find
sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening,
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It could happen here a podcast where I just got
vaccinated and boy, howdy, the ship this year hits like
a fucking train.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
It does, I I go vaccinated, it's it's it's a
rough one this year.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh man, Yeah, fucking RFK Junior was right.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Broadcasting through the vaccine injury today.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, that's right. I've received my vaccine injury. I'm complaining
to the board. Oh man, I'm gonna nap after this.
But first, how about we talk about fucking trendy Aragua,
the fucking narco criminal group that President Trump is currently
justifying blowing up boats in the middle of international waters
as a result.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Of Yeah, it's great. It's a good thing that we
are now killing civilians in countries where we are not
at war with It's great.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This has been something Stephen Miller had been talking about
since the first Trump administration, you know, and had talked
with like back when the military was willing to push
back against Trump more. People would be like, what you
what the fuck are you talking about? We can't launch
strikes at just like random boats, and Steve Miller be like,
why not?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And now they're doing it?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, And this group, this criminal cartel out of Venezuela
has been the current justification. As we'll talk about, most
of what is said about this trendy Aragua by the
administration about you know, their role in smuggling drugs in
the United States is either just completely invented or massively exaggerated.
(01:36):
It is a really interesting group. They have a fascinating
like history. The literal meaning is train of Arugua. Sorry,
And it started out with like labor unions that were
working on a railway project. It was going to be
connecting central and western Venezuela together. And as has happened
in history, what started as like labor union organizing wound
(01:58):
up kind of morphing into a direct criminal activity.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
The guy who's generally credited as the founder, although that's
kind of flattening things a little bit, is Hector Guerrero Flores,
known as Nino Guerrero, and he he got put in
for seventeen years for murder and drug trafficking at this
prison called tokron Am I I am saying that, right, James, How.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Do we see to Coron Yeah, Sarenaxin. Yeah, there's a
little accent over the second. Oh, as you go up
with down up to Coron. Thank you, James.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
And so this one of the things that's fun about
this is that this prison where they start loading these
guys up, becomes so heavily organized, and it eventually turns
from being like a prison in the traditional sense to
more being like a tiny independent city that the gang
is based out of.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It acted as their fortress.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
They established like nightclubs in it, and you know, luxury facilities,
and like leaders of the gang more or less came
and went as they pleased, went back to their families,
and it was not really what you'd think of as
a prison in the traditional sense for a lot of
these guys. For a while, a payment system was created
(03:07):
in order to like basically you would inmates would pay
for protection or for access to the nicer aspects of
the prison called the cause. And if you didn't pay,
you know, they had various ways of physically abusing you.
There's a good article in Small Wars Journal that talks
about the origins and the impact of this group, and
it quotes someone from inside the prison is saying, the
(03:28):
first time you don't pay, they shoot your wrist, the
second time your ankle, the third time, and you face
the death penalty. So, like you're talking like pretty traditional
criminal gang stuff, right, Yeah. So the journey of this
group from gang that's major in Venezuela to gang that's
kind of operating in larger and larger chunks of South
America followed a pretty natural path where they got involved
(03:51):
in more kinds of smuggling and more kinds of trafficking
over the years, started setting up operations in other parts
of South America Eca. But one of the things that
the gang has sort of done is you've got this
kind of process by which they have these local affiliates
who are not directly associated with the gang in like
(04:12):
the strict hierarchical sense, and that it's not literally the
gang sending an official into another state. It's more like
franchising is kind of the way things work, and you
have different local groups, some of whom are not even
connected in any way to the original organization, claiming a
line of descent in order to basically draft off of
that clout, you know, yeah, yeah, which is kind of
(04:35):
what you've seen increasingly, and this has led to a
situation where there's enough claims of trend being involved in
the United States and other countries that it looks a
lot like a larger and more centralized criminal organization than
it actually is in reality.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yeah, I think the state understands these things like many states, right,
like who like with a leader and a distinct authority
structure and like a direct command. That is not how
my understanding is that they operate, right because they are
not mini states there. They are a different entity to that.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, And what is your Because you've actually spent time
reporting and in Venezuela, when did you first become aware
of trend?
Speaker 4 (05:16):
I mean I became aware of like the fact that
there were armed gangs and criminals. I mean I was
robbed at gunpoint when I was in Venezuela, right, so
that may be aware that that there were people who
who did crime with weapons, But I wasn't aware really
of trend that I went until like maybe the twenty twenty.
I mean, I don't report on organized crime, nor do
(05:36):
I particularly follow it, right, But I take an interest
in Venezuelan affairs and as much as I've spent time there,
and I have like an affinity with the people, and
I understand that things are getting going from bad to
worse for them. Under their government. So so I took
an interest. I guess it was like, are you familiar
with a Naco Sobrinos affair? No, okay, Naco Sobrinos is
(05:57):
like narco nephews. I think they're actually step nephews of
Maduro if I recall correctly. It doesn't hugely matter. They're
like part of his family in a mediate and I
believe they lived in his compound. And they used like,
I don't want to make statements that are incorrect that
I believe they use a presidential hangar or runway to
fly a plane to Haiti, which the USDA alleges, and
(06:21):
it is most likely true that that that that plane
was stuffed full of cocaine.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Sure, many such cases, Yeah, many such cases.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
They believe they have diplomatic immunity, which they did not,
which I believe came as surprise to them at the
moment of their detention. And so at that point I
was like, shit, we can get onto this. How the
Trump administration has like basically alled to Venezuela as a
narco dictatorship. Certainly there is overlap between organized crime and
the state, right, it's because the state is so poor
(06:50):
and so corrupt. That inevitably you will see like overlap
between organized crime and the state.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So I guess right.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Whenever the knack of Sobrino's affair was I was like, okay,
I need any to sort of be aware of this.
And of course in my like coverage of immigration, you
hear of people mostly their talk is just not that
their life has been made hard by organized crime, if
I managed so much as their life has been made
hard by the government completely failing to provide services and
(07:20):
the complete collapse of the Venezuelan economy. You know, I'm
not going to ask about it explicitly, but if someone
mentions it, I sort of take note of it as
one of the reasons why people are leaving.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Would you bring up as a really good point, which
is that twenty fourteen is kind of when the most
recent Venezuelan economic crisis really kicked off. And two is
fourteen to twenty eighteen was a major period of growth
for trend and then twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two
is when they really started pushing up into and involving
themselves increasingly in Colombia and the United States as a
(07:50):
result of like the increased flow of Venezuelans out of
Venezuela and into other countries and eventually up to the
US and to some extent, And it's been since twenty
twenty two that the gang has really been pruned back,
you know, both as a result of the Venezuelan government
taking control of the prison again and like basically invading
it with the military in order to deny them access
(08:12):
to what had been like their primary centralized, like hub
of control, and also due to the fact that, like
after expansion into Columbia and Chile, both criminal organizations and
the governments of those countries increasingly pushed back against the organization, right, Yeah,
one of the reasons why they're being targeted. But also
one of the things that's like fundamentally bullshit about the
administration's description of what's happening is that we're very much
(08:37):
talking about a cartel that's on its back feet and
been on its back feet for the last several years
as the result of significant reversals in their business and
in their political situation.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Yeah, I mean, Columbia has been the Columbian Civil War
is one of the longest running conflicts in the world.
But things have changed their substantially, right, in the last
five or seven years. You know, you have people from
the FOC disarming. You have the fracture of what was
previously their territory in some of who were previously their
(09:06):
militants into other groups, right, And so that has allowed
the state there to continue its conflict against what remains
of that and also to clamp down other groups. Right.
And evidently, like the flow of drugs, United States relies
on the complicity or inability to stop it of many states.
(09:28):
And yeah, we've seen like a concerted effort and also
like the attempts of the United States to stop smuggling.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
So, I guess if people aren't familiar, we should just
explain the US DHS, of which the United States Coast
Guard is part. I think a lot of people aren't
aware the Coast Guard is part of DHS claims a
universal jurisdiction or jurisdiction at least in areas where drugs
are being smuggled to the United States, Right, So the
US Coast Guard had a role to play in this
(09:57):
in the I guess interdiction is the word they would
use of drugs coming to the United States. I probably
haven't got data on this. In the last year or so.
But it certainly was the case that most drugs entering
the US entered through ports of entry as opposed to
like between ports of entry, right, like through the desert,
through the mountains, and so like these these boats, I
guess are not just to be clear that they're not
(10:19):
necessarily going to the United States, and most states are
not going to United States, and most states are going
to Mexico and then moving to the United States through
other methods. But like as the governments both south of
the United States and in the United States who adapted,
it's become harder and harder for those people, right, And
so it's become harder and harder for these criminal organizations
to make money off these drugs.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And that's led to, I mean a situation that one
of the things that they've been accused of being by
the Trump administration and internationally is essentially an agent of
the Maduro regime, right, And this is something that certainly
the Venezuelan government denies. This is not a thing where
I can you know, entirely give you this is exactly
what's happened. But it seems accurate to say that as
an organization, as their their actual like control and power
(11:04):
have been eroded, they have been utilized increasingly as a
way to, for example, deal with like dissidents who are
hostile to the Madeiro regime right as a as a
deniable asset. In particular, there's been cases that are reasonably
well documented of dissidents against the Venezuelan regime in Chile
and Trendy Aragua being used as like assassins to to
(11:25):
take out dissonance in foreign countries in a deniable manner. Right, Yeah,
And I mean it looks to me like this has
kind of increased as their actual ability to directly control
things and directly contest the regime as a power center
has been eroded.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, it's kind of a classic like I wouldn't say
that like ideologically aligned, right, but sometimes their interests aligned, Yeah,
to be clearly, Like trend are one of the sort
of organized crime institutions in Venezuela, but by.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Five only one, right, you have, yeah, Trendel. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
For example, you have these other groups who have also
been active in anti government protests, especially since the I'm
going to use that quote unquote election here in July
of last year, right, where electoral fraud is widely alleged
and I documented that in My Daddy and series if
people want to listen to that. But it's not like
these two are lot in lockstep. But yeah, like we
(12:22):
can understand that sometimes that the interest might align and
in those areas may be beneficial for the regime to,
like you say, to use them as a deniable asset.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right, which does not.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Like one of the things that's kind of most frustrating
is hearing them described as central to the smuggling of
fentanyl into the United States, which, like, even in kind
of the most elaborate version of this group being utilized
by the Venezuelan government is fanciful, right, Like, because Venezuela
just doesn't have that much to do with the smuggling
(12:55):
of fentidel into the United States. Yeah, Like, Venezuela and
Venezuelan criminal organizations just aren't that involved in that process.
That's not where it's coming from, right. Yeah, And we'll
talk some more about fentanyl, but first, you know what's
kind of like fentanyl advertising. We're back and we're talking
(13:25):
about fentanyl. Well, we're talking about like these claims because
that's the justification for why we need to airstrike these boats.
The most recent of which we know was boarded by
another government and had drugs on board. It removed before
it was struck.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, and we simply have no idea, no way to verify.
I have no way to verify what the administration is
claiming about these boats.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
We're just seeing boats get blown up.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
But yeah, and everybody who's on that boat is no dead,
so there's not many many people to contradict that story.
Should we explain like the usual coast Guard process.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
For in addiction? Yeah, I think that's probably good idea.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
So generally, right, what the US Coast Guide is going
to do is they will have these large vessels from
which they will launch smaller vessels and helicopters to intercept craft, right,
like the most kind of I guess like famous charismatic
other like Colombian like they call them Narco subs.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
There's their semi submarines.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Actually that they're not like fully submersed, but they that
much of the vessel is submerged. What the Coast Guard
would normally do, to my understanding, is to send a
vessel to intercept them, right, be it a helicopter or
a boat, or probably both in most cases I would
imagine tell them to stop.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
If they don't stop, the Coastguard will have like a
sniper who will shoot out the engine of the craft.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
They will then board, they will entertain the people. They
will obviously confiscate any drugs that they find, and then
they will take those people back to their vessel where
they're detained, and then they'll be tried in the US. Right,
and then they would normally it's they can't kind of
scoop up all these ships that they've intercepted or semi
subs or whatever, so they will normally destroy those and
(15:05):
scuttle them so they sink to the bottom of the ocean.
I don't know how many cases they've done this in,
but that would be the normal procedure for Coast Guard.
It gets pre twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It's got to be fun being a fish near one
of those vessels, yeah, fishing.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Getting yeah yeah, yeah. I don't know what they do
with all the cac And sometimes they bring all the
cocaine back for a photo op. You see that sometimes
yeah yeah, yeah, that looks good. Yeah yeah, it's nicely packaged,
says cocaine or fentanyl on the side or whatever. That
is my understanding of what was done previously. The strikes
in the last month have been extremely different, right, Yeah,
(15:44):
and we're looking at I think fourteen people killed so
far that we've had confirmed, although those numbers are certainly
higher than the when you're hearing them, right, because we've
just had another strike in the last day or so
that I don't think we have exact numbers on how
many people were involved.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
They use, from what I understand, drones from Special Operations
Command to do these strikes, right, which in itself is
quite unusual. And then the strikes themselves consisted of did
they say what I guess it looks like a hell
fire missile, but I don't know if they've said.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
That looked like health fires to me on the videos
I've seen.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Yeah, it's not exactly like high DEPF video, but you
see them striking like it looks kind of like a
like a it's a speedboat, right, like it's a surface vessel.
It's not a not a semi sub or a submarine.
It's unclear like what has happened before, at least I
haven't seen any reporting or what happened before, like whether
they got in order to stop I think in one
(16:37):
case they had turned around right having noticed a drone
and begun returning towards the coast, towards Venezuela, I guess,
And they were still struck. And it appears that in
at least one case, the drone struck them again, like
it hit them once and then returned for a second
run to hit I guess the survivors.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And you know, there's a couple of facts that go
alongside what we actually know and versus what the administration's claiming.
About eighty percent of people involved in the smuggling of
illegal drugs into the United States are US citizens, and
then of the remaining twenty ish percent, a chunk of
those are resident legal aliens, and the chunk are a
(17:21):
mix of undocumented people, non citizens, or people whose status
is unknown or extra diited aliens. Right like, this is
based on the United States Sentencing Commissions data from twenty
twenty four, and about eighty five percent of drugs that
are brought into the United States are smuggled in at
ports of entry. And this makes complete sense if you
think about it, in part because it's pretty easy to
(17:43):
track when you've just got like a boat trying to
smuggle stuff into the country illicitly and the people who
are on that boat. If the art citizens have no
right to enter the country inherently, as opposed to citizens
who do have a right to enter, and ports of
entry where there's a shitload of you want to heighten
plane sight with this stuff? Right, Like it just makes sense,
Like would you rather if you were smuggling a huge
(18:06):
amount of illegal shit? Would you rather be on your
own with a van or a vehicle full of very
illegal drugs or would you rather be like hiding amongst
the billions of tons of shit that gets taken to
this country every single year, right, Yeah, which is why
just the reality of the data is so completely different
than the administration makes it out to be. And obviously,
(18:28):
foreign criminal organizations are heavily involved in the smuggling of
illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl in the United States, but we're
talking primarily about like the Sinaloa cartel and then different
criminal organizations involved in the smuggling a fentnyel out of China, right,
which is where a lot of fentanyl comes from.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
As opposed to.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Again, Venezuela, the government here is going for low hanging fruit.
I think as The conclusion I'm driven to just every
time I read about this is that, like, there doesn't
seem to be a better reason for focusing on this organization,
which really is just not that involved in crime in
the United States nearly to the that groups like the
scene lower Cartel are.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, I mean, it offers a chance to demonize Venezuelan people, right,
and Venezuelan people made up a large number of the
people who came to the United States to seek asylum
under Biden, because like, if we do believe that these
like the word in Spanish would be like a megabandas
like mega gangs are a serious threat to the well
being of people in the United States, imagine how much
(19:24):
more of a threat they are to the well being
a people in Venezuela, right, Right, And that combined with
a government which objectively sucks and which also uses extra
judicial violence, right, including in its battle against these gangs,
leads people to want to leave and when they come here,
the United States, especially the Trump Recheme, has been engaged
(19:47):
in this demonization of migrants. Right, this offers a very
convenient narrative for that to say that these people are
bringing crime here. The vast majority of them are doing
the exact opposite. They are coming here because the state
in Venezuela has extorted them, and slash or non state
(20:08):
actors in Venezuela have extorted them. The vast bulk of
the complaints I hear from Megan for Venezuela about the state,
they have no interest other than working hard and receiving
like a decent living wage for that. Yeah, every Venezuelan
person I spoke to almost burned on when I ask
what their American dream is, tell you that their American
(20:28):
dream is to have a job that pays them enough
to feed their family. Right, Like, we have next to
no evidence of organized crime coming into the United States
through the asyluentists, and there are sure there will be,
like I would imagine a fraction of a single percent
of cases, sure in which that is the case. But
it's being used against all these Venezuelan people right as
(20:50):
we've seen. And I guess I a should just clarify that,
like one thing about these megabandas that they're not like maras, right,
like so like MS thirteen being a mara, right, like
a gang in which members are identified by certain tattoos.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Oh my god, Yes, this is tattoos and emojis, yes.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah, yeah, again, Like I understand that that is a
thing that happens in some cases, but that is not
a thing that is common to these gangs.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
No, it's it's certainly not common to trendy Araguas. Right,
It's like the use of tattoos. There's not even widespread
agreement among experts as to whether or not there's any
sort of centralized, US based hierarchy for the group, right right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
The tattooing is just as it is in the United
States and that sort of places around the world. A
very common practice in Venezuela that the people do for
as many reasons as there are people right to include
because they love their mum, because they love their kids,
because they're like a football team, because they are religious,
et cetera, et cetera. That is why people get tattoos.
It is not to indicate membership in any organization.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
No, And this is this is something that's verified. Again,
Like one of the leading experts on trend is Jana Risquez,
who wrote a book The trendy Aragua, The Gang that
revolutionized organized crime in Latin America. She specifically told in
otisis Telemundo during an interview. Venezuelan gangs are not identified
by tattoos. To be a member of one of these
Venezuelan organizations, you don't need a tattoo. You can have
(22:20):
no tattoos and still be part of it. You can
also have a tattoo that matches other members of the organization.
So like again, there's groups and different sort of because
this is a very bottom up sort of organization, which
is often the case with criminal groups, where like they
will you know, there will be money being passed in
one direction or another, but there's not tight control being
exercised in a top down manner. You can find groups
(22:41):
that have tattoos in common, but it's not a centralized
thing that the organization does.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yeah, and like the Venezuelan state, to be clear, is
extremely violent. They have like a special armed police which
deals with gangs and organized crime that kills hundreds of people.
It would be unwise to be going about in the
street with it like I am a member of a
certain gang. Right, tattoo right, And so unless you plan
to live in some area where where you feel completely
(23:06):
safe from the state, that would be a very unwise thing.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
To do.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, and we'll talk some more about things that are unwise,
but first it would be wise for you to buy
these products. We're back, and I want to quote from
a recent piece in The Guardian on the US law
(23:31):
enforcement claiming that emoji's signal membership in this organization. Man
This is by Sam Levin and man Vy Singh from September,
a couple of days ago. The first reference to emojis
in the records comes from a July twenty twenty four
situational awareness alert from the n WHITPD, which was distributed
to law enforcement across the country and warned of trendy
Araguaf threats in New York City. In WYPD Intelligence Encounter
(23:54):
Terrorism Bureau has observed members of TDA in New York
City using social media messaging platforms such as Instagram and
Talk to depict the legiance to the gang. The other
said TDA members often utilize emojis such as trains, Ninja's,
slot machines, double swords, shields, ogre, face mask and crowns.
Members also use South American slang and Arabic language terms
to mask their identities on social media. They've cited the
(24:15):
NYPD tattoos featuring Michael Jordan, fucking ninja emojis. You're tolding
me that that's that's a TDA sybol. That's not just
something people use.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Like, yeah, man, this is like, I mean, there's a
large Arab or population of Arab descent in Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
That's where these slangs come from.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Like, people use emojis, particularly in this context because their
education has not been the best, right, Like, the access
to to literacy is less than it would be in
other contexts. So like sometimes they use emoji, so they
just use them because it's funny. But like the notion
of like and yeah, people will use slang. People will
spell shit the way they say it. Sometimes when I'm
(24:52):
talking to Venezuelan people, you know, if I'm if I'm
talking to a source and they I sometimes I have
to read it aloud to help me understand what they're saying.
That it's very common to people in Venezuela. There's nothing
to do with being a member of a gang whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, and I mean there's a lot of that in
terms of like the fact that the Chicago Bulls and
Michael Jordan are popular among immigrants, right, Like that that's
particularly Venezuelan immigrants, and a lot of it comes from like, well,
a lot of Venezuelan immigrants tend to like these things
in media, tend to like these musicians and get tattoos
(25:27):
that reference these things in popular culture or these things
you know that different Venezuelan artists have put out. And
that's I mean, it's certainly not a sign that like, oh,
these things signal membership and this criminal organization and more
they're just targeting Venezuelans and these things are more common
among Venezuelans, but not certainly not exclusive to that group.
When you when you're saying that like a Michael Jordan's
(25:49):
shirt or tattoo is a symbol of membership in a criminal,
criminal organization, well, I guess like a third of my
high school were criminals. I mean they were, but not
in this way.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Yeah, ye, Like these are very common, like the Jordan logo,
I don't know what it's called, the jumping Jordan logo.
Not a big sports where fan myself, but like, yeah,
it's very common. It's because people buy fake designer apparel
all the time. Like you will also see people tons
of people with Louis Viton items. They're not real. That
does not indicate membership in any gang. It's just kind
(26:21):
of an aspirational thing that you can buy any almost
anywhere in Venezuela because no one's going down there to
enforce copyright laws. Like it's not it doesn't indicate any affiliation.
Sometimes it indicates like an interest with the United States, right,
like like that these are where these things come from,
and this is a place where these people would like
to go. I also saw a guy cross a Darien
(26:42):
glap in Nike Alpha flys, like the super Fast Marathon
running shoes with the giant carbon plated spring. Like this
is not like indication of anything other than that, like
this person thought those were cool and they purchased them. Yeah,
are you familiar with this Cartel de lo Solis thing?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No?
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Okay, so like the Cartel del Solis, the Cartel of
the Sun of the Sun's I guess it's another organization
which the US is alleging that Maduro is is like
head of right that, like it's a vertically organized organization
and that like Maduro is literally the chief of it,
(27:27):
And I guess I just want to say, like the
same shit applies, right there are gangs all over Karrakas,
as well as names we haven't mentioned. What you've got
here is state failure, right Like in Venezuela, the state
has failed to provide people with services and it does
not always enjoy a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
You also have massive corruption, So it is absolutely the
(27:49):
case that people smuggling drugs through Venezuela will be able
to buy off certain officials, right, particularly like military commanders
and people who have control over transit and border areas.
It doesn't imply like a vertical structure per se. To
be clear, like I don't think my Dado should be
in charge of Venezuela. I think that my duadal regime
(28:11):
is bad for Venezuela and bad for the world. But
like it's very oversimplified to see it like straight up
as like a narco regime, right that, Like, there is
more to it than that. This is the country that
hits on masses of oil. This is a country that
has been incredibly corrupt from an incredibly long time now,
and you're always going to see these organizations creeping into
(28:35):
the government. Right when the government can't even pay its
own people will guarantee them a decent and dignified quality
of life like. That doesn't mean that it is okay
to just kill like First and foremost, I would imagine
that if we go with the government story that the
boats that they struck were carrying drugs, right, it is
(28:58):
unlikely that people who are carrying those drugs or anything
other than poor desperate young men who wanted a chance
at a better life and or were intimidated into doing this, right,
And maybe some of them chose to do this because
they thought this was the way they could get money
and the progress in a place that does not for
them many opportunities. These are not the people who are
(29:20):
in any way like making the calls, making the decisions, right,
and so killing them isn't going to do very much
because there is a massive supply of poor desperate young
men in Venezuela, and it's not going to change anything
to kill fourteen fifteen of them, other than it will
obviously it's a tragedy for those families, right, there's people
(29:42):
who lose their children or whatever. Yeah, and so like,
I don't know until we solve the situation that life
is untenable for people in Venezuela, Yes, there will be
crime there, and yes, people from there will want to
come to the United States.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Both of those things make sense.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
That does not mean that people coming to the United
States are coming to the United States to do bad things.
The vast majority of them are coming to the United
States to escape bad things. We've had so much discourse
about Venezuelan people and crime, even in the you know,
this has begun, I think in Chicago in the Biden administration,
I have not seen journalists of whatever political stripe talk
(30:20):
to Venezuelan people about this. Right, Like, with very few exceptions,
it's very easy to find Venezuelan people, especially you know,
if you if you work at the border and you
do border reporting. But even still, you know, lots of
these Venezuelan people went to Denver, some of them went
to Chicago, some of them went to the Springs in Colorado,
(30:41):
many of them went to Texas. They went to all
kinds of places when they came to the United States. Right,
if you speak Spanish, it's not hard to find these
people and ask them what's it like in Venezuela, why
did you come here? And then perhaps you can you know,
establish a picture of yeah, it's pretty shit, right, people
work hard every day and don't make enough to feed
their family, if their kid is sick, if their elderly
(31:03):
parents can't work and need support, it's really hard to
do that. That is why they want to come to
the US. That is why often young men want to
come to the US right because the world as it
is gives them the highest level of economic opportunity, and
so the family will send them to the US such
as they can earn enough money and they hope one
day to bring their families here. Sometimes you also see
(31:25):
people bringing their very young children because they realize there's
no future for their children in Venezuela, so they make
the choice to try and come to somewhere which once
promised a future for hard working people and doesn't really anymore.
But like it just it pains me so much to
see this discussion of Venezuela without Venezuelan people, most of
(31:46):
whom I found to be wonderful, Like I spent a
good amount of time in Venezuela and even longer with
Venezuelan people, and they have a great affection for them,
like they've been nothing but kind to me, even now,
like a year after it's in the Darien Gap. I
get text all the time from Venezuelan people, the majority
of them not asking for help, just asking how I
(32:08):
am asking? Do I know what happened to the Bolivian girl?
Do I know what happened to the Zimbabwean women? Like
genuinely concerned, even amidst like a really shit situation for them,
concerned for the well being of other people. And I
just wish instead of talking about yeah, there are hundreds,
maybe thousands of Venezuelan people who are involved in moving
(32:32):
drugs to United States, we could talk about the millions
of people who just want to work hard and have
a decent life and who are being denied a chance
to do that at home, and are now being denied
a chance to do that here as well.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Well, I think that's about it for our episode today.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Until next time, folks, I don't know rest of luck
out there? Yeah it could happen.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from fool Zone Media, visit our website goolezonmedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find
sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening,
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James Stout
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