Spanish police arrested 13 suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua throughout 5 cities, seized a stash of unlawful medication and dismantled two drug laboratories, authorities stated Friday.
The arrests adopted an investigation Spanish police opened final yr after the brother of “Niño Guerrero,” the chief of the Tren de Aragua gang, was arrested in Barcelona below a global arrest warrant issued by Venezuelan authorities, police stated. This was Spain’s first operation meant to dismantle a suspect cell of the Venezuelan jail gang, police stated in a press release.
The 2 laboratories that police dismantled had been used to make tusi, a mix of cocaine, MDMA and ketamine, police stated. Video exhibits authorities discovering packages and a pink substance inside a residence. The arrests passed off within the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Madrid, Girona, A Coruña and Valencia.
The Tren de Aragua gang originated in Venezuela greater than a decade in the past at an infamously lawless jail with hardened criminals within the central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent times as greater than 7.7 million Venezuelans fled financial turmoil and migrated to different Latin American international locations, the U.S. and Spain.
The gang has grow to be a key reference within the Trump administration’s crackdown towards alleged drug smugglers. The administration introduced yet one more lethal U.S. strike on a ship officers stated was trafficking narcotics within the Caribbean Sea on Friday. No less than 18 such strikes have killed at the least 70 individuals.
The US started finishing up the strikes — which specialists say quantity to extrajudicial killings even when they aim recognized traffickers — in early September, taking purpose at vessels within the Caribbean and jap Pacific. The Trump administration has stated in a discover to Congress that the USA is engaged in “armed battle” with Latin American drug cartels, describing them as terrorist teams as a part of its justification for the strikes.
President Trump had beforehand designated Tren de Aragua as a terrorist group, together with MS-13 and different gangs and cartels. Mr. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March to deal with suspected gang members like wartime enemies of the U.S. authorities, an motion that has solely been taken three different instances in United States historical past.
