Chile's harsh response to Venezuela: 'It is an insult' to deny the existence of the Aragua Train

The Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohásaid this Tuesday that it is an “insult” that Venezuela denies the existence of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang and says that it is an invention of the international media.

“It is an insult, not to the Government of Chile but to the people of Chile and the people of Latin America. Unacceptable,” Tohá said in statements to the press.

It is an insult, not to the Government of Chile but to the people of Chile and the people of Latin America. Unacceptable.

The minister also regretted that Venezuela “claims to be a Bolivarian country” while “Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and other Latin American peoples strongly suffer the scourge of this criminal gang”.

“People have lost their families, they have lost the tranquility of their neighborhoods, they have lost their businesses because of it,” he added.

The Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil, assured this Monday in a meeting in Cúcuta (Colombia) with his Colombian counterpart, Luis Gilberto Murillo, that “The Aragua Train is a fiction created by the international media to try to create a non-existent label, as they did at the time with the Cartel of the Suns.”

“We have seen, for example, how ridiculously videos appear even of people saying 'we are from the Aragua Train', with a Peruvian accent, with a Chilean accent,” he added.

The Aragua Train is a transnational criminal organization originating in Venezuela, considered the most powerful gang in the country. and dedicated to carrying out murders, extortion, kidnappings, human trafficking, among other crimes.

Since 2018, the group has rapidly expanded across the American continent along the route taken by Venezuelan migrants and is known to operate in cities in Colombia, Peru, Chile and other countries.

Chile has been experiencing an increase in crime for some years, which has led the homicide rate to grow from 4.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to 6.7 in 2022, and which is largely attributed to the arrival of bands like the Tren de Aragua.