US sanctions alleged leader of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua

The State Department has offered up to $3m for accusation starring to the apprehension of Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano.

The United States Treasury Department has sanctioned the alleged person of Tren de Aragua (TDA), a Venezuelan pack that the medication of President Donald Trump has used arsenic justification for its migration crackdown.

In a connection released connected Tuesday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano was not lone sanctioned but besides indicted by the Department of Justice.

According to unsealed tribunal documents, Mosquera Serrano faces charges related to cause trafficking and terrorism. He was besides added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, with a $3m reward offered for accusation starring to his apprehension oregon conviction.

In the statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Tren de Aragua, nether Mosquera Serrano’s leadership, of “terrorizing our communities and facilitating the travel of illicit narcotics into our country”.

It was the latest effort successful the Trump administration’s run to ace down connected transgression enactment that it claims is tied to the proliferation of overseas gangs and transgression networks successful the US.

Earlier this year, the Trump medication designated Tren de Aragua and different Latin American gangs arsenic “foreign violent organisations”, a class much commonly utilized to picture planetary groups with convulsive governmental aims.

But Trump has utilized the menace of transgression networks based overseas to warrant the usage of exigency powers during his 2nd term.

For instance, the Trump medication has claimed that Tren de Aragua is coordinating its US activities with the authorities of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. That allegation was past utilized to warrant the usage of a uncommon wartime law: the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Claiming that the beingness of groups similar Tren de Aragua constituted a overseas “invasion” connected US soil, Trump leveraged the Alien Enemies Act arsenic the ineligible ground for pursuing the expedited deportations of alleged pack members.

More than 200 radical were sent to a maximum-security situation successful El Salvador, wherever galore of them stay to this day.

Those deportations person drawn wide criticism, on with a slew of ineligible challenges. Critics person said that the expedited deportations violated the immigrants’ rights to owed process. They besides pointed retired that galore of the deported men did not person transgression records.

Lawyers for immoderate of the men person argued that they look to person been imprisoned based connected their tattoos and wardrobe choices. The Department of Homeland Security, however, has disputed that allegation.

At slightest 1 apical US authoritative has acknowledged that Maduro’s authorities whitethorn not nonstop Tren de Aragua.

An April memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, obtained by quality outlets similar NPR and The New York Times, likewise formed uncertainty connected the thought that Venezuela was controlling the gang’s movements successful the US.

Rather, the memo said that the Maduro authorities apt sees Tren de Aragua arsenic a threat.

“While Venezuela’s permissive situation enables TDA to operate, the Maduro authorities astir apt does not person a argumentation of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA question to and operations successful the United States,” the memo reads.

Last July, the US and Colombia offered associated multimillion-dollar rewards for accusation starring to the apprehension of Mosquera Serrano and 2 different men believed to pb Tren de Aragua.

The radical was besides sanctioned successful the aforesaid period arsenic a transnational transgression organisation for “engaging successful divers transgression activities, specified arsenic quality smuggling and trafficking, gender-based violence, wealth laundering, and illicit cause trafficking”, according to a Treasury Department statement.

Numerous countries successful Latin America person struggled with the gang’s accelerated growth, which has been linked to governmental assassinations and wide quality trafficking, though experts accidental determination is small to suggest the pack has infiltrated the US.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies