Tren de Aragua, Regime Change Discourse, Venezuela and T&T

Tren de Aragua, T&T and the Caribbean

The article in the Sunday Express March 13, 2022 page 7 was yet another example of the use of massa regime change discourse on Venezuela by the Express to pursue its present agenda on T&T to constantly stoke its moral panic on crime which has the TTPS in the firing line. The said article presents regime change discourse in Venezuela from sources whose discourse in no way reflects gangland reality on the ground in Venezuela to then extrapolate a causal impact on reality on the ground in T&T, which in no way is reality on the ground in Gangland T&T. Then the Express proceeds to question the acting CoP on this manufactured reality that in no way has traction with the reality of Gangland T&T today.

The entire instrument constituted to spread panic is premised on the regime change discourse of Gangland Venezuela and the so-called paramountcy of Tren de Aragua and their Caribbean operations. This discourse asserts that Tren is the paramount Gangland Venezuela organization today with no evidence to prove this assertion whilst it never articulates the relation of Tren to the Colombian paramilitary Dons or the Mexican TTOs or both. It fails to describe in detail the business model of Tren, its order of battle, organizational model and its disciplinary order. It fails to deconstruct the operational basis of Tren in Zulia state which is the command and control center of the Venezuelan illicit trades. This massa regime change discourse refuses to see the Mexican TTOs and cannot fully deconstruct the operations of the Colombian paramilitary Dons in Venezuela as they are the leading edge of regime change by insurrection, America’s instruments. Likewise the Express con job is silent on the role of the Colombian Dons and their operatives in Venezuela and T&T in the illicit trades from Venezuela to T&T and the Caribbean, this is the work of Tren. This sleight of hand massa deception is not new on Venezuela as for example there was the discourse of the Cartel of the Sun which was changed to Cartel of the Suns implicating for example Tareck el Aissami as a drug trafficker until it was revealed that the “evidence” was all fabricated, manufactured. Now there is Tren de Aragua to counter the revelations of the complicity of America’s president in waiting and the whole crew of “democrats” oppressed by Maduro with the Colombian paramilitary Dons and their trafficking organisations.

The first Venezuelan reality is that Tren arose and exerted hegemony over sections of Venezuelan Gangland in a 10 year time frame which coincided with the exertion of the hegemony of the Mexican TTOs over the illicit trades of Venezuela. The business model, the order of battle and the disciplinary order of Tren are exactly those of a Gangland affiliate of the Mexican TTOs. Tren is known to regularly engage in battle with Colombian paramilitary Dons who have invaded Venezuelan states that border Colombia especially with the renegade FARC and ELN. Tren is also known to engage , militarily with agents of the Venezuelan state in the employ of the Colombian Dons in Venezuela. Tren is all about generating wealth by any and all means necessary not regime change unlike Gangland Venezuela under the control of the Colombian Dons as El Koki which places it on a collision course with Gangland under the control of the Dons vividly illustrated by the clashes in the gold, diamond and coltan fields of Bolivar state.

Massa regime change discourse has then to generate this manufactured reality of Tren as its operational mode presents a potent challenge to the regime change agenda of Venezuelan Gangland under the control of the Colombian Dons. This daily challenge enables the Maduro regime to devote state resources to specific operations and operators of Colombian Don Gangland in Venezuela as El Koki liberating space which is then open for the new order of the Mexican TTOs. This is the benefit derived from staying clear of a regime change agenda in Venezuela today for the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Massa regime change discourse refuses to accept publicly the existence of the Mexican TTOs hence it is incapable of articulating reality on the ground forcing it to always manufacture a reality that has no traction on the ground as that of the Express and insightcrime, all instruments of massa regime change. When you use massa regime change discourse to constitute instruments of intervention on the ground you are doomed to repeat the same bullshit over and over with no impact on a reality your discourse cannot appropriate. The Express points fingers at the state agencies but the discourse it utilizes to interrogate the state agencies is incapable of understanding the reality on the ground much less efficaciously changing it.

Tren de Aragua and T&T

The Sunday Express story is now attempting to mask the reality that the Colombian Don and its agents dominate the illicit smuggling of illegal aliens into T&T from Venezuela using the sea routes from Venezuela. The illegal community that was created by human smuggling is under the hegemony of the Colombian Don and given the Cleansing coupled with the hegemony of the Mexican TTOs over the illicit trades of the Caribbean including T&T this illicit community of non-nationals, the trafficking families of the oligarchy, other persons and groups and gangland of the Colombian Don is now being reconfigured into a redoubt by/for the Colombian Dons. The order of the Mexican TTOs in Venezuela does not rely on Sucre state to export illicit drugs and illegal aliens to T&T and the Caribbean as they utilise the Colombian and Venezuelan Caribbean coastline to do this, in the case of Venezuela stretching from Falcon state to Nueva Esparta state in addition to Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana with command and control in Nueva Esparta. The disciplinary order of the Mexican TTOs and its affiliates precludes operatives of this order speaking to any researcher making revelations that will earn them their eternal silence in T&T worse yet in Venezuela. The loose lips of independents and those in the employ of the Colombian Dons reveal nothing about the order and the Tren for what applies to the business model and disciplinary order of the Colombian Don is irrelevant to the Order of the Mexican TTOs and their affiliates of Gangland.

The activities of the Tren in T&T and the Caribbean must obey the rules of the Order as there are affiliates of the Order in T&T and the Caribbean which precludes any attempt to engage in any battle for dominance against fellow affiliates of the Order. Tren will then be present to tap into the old pipeline that moves Venezuelan gold and diamonds from T&T to Europe, tap into the pipeline that exports scrap metals from T&T, tap into the pipeline that moves coltan to the north Atlantic, tap into the market for professional sex workers in T&T and the Caribbean. These are the major activities that will interest the Tren in T&T and the Caribbean as the illicit drug trafficking pipelines are well established and moving product to especially Europe. The Tren de Aragua is then simply another affiliate of the Mexican TTOs intent on squeezing the illicit market share of the Colombian paramilitary Dons in Venezuela and the Caribbean which is heightening their exclusion from the north Atlantic illicit markets especially in the rapidly growing drug market of Europe. As a result the drug trafficking families of the T&T oligarchy given their increasing dependence on US drug markets for their survival are increasingly extraditable putting in play the Cleansing of the traffickers of the oligarchy as in Guatemala and now Honduras which is/was the handiwork of the Mexican TTOs.

The said article in the Sunday Express amounted to very little in light of the hegemonic order on the ground, all it was is massa regime change discourse applied to T&T to invoke a moral panic on the threat posed by Tren de Aragua deliberately attempting to mask the activities of the Colombian Dons in T&T that pose the grave threat to public safety. The most potent indicator of this deliberate masking of reality on the ground in T&T is this statement from the article: “Intelligence sources say Tren de Aragua currently has a partnership with a well known incarcerated person from East Trinidad. The person is currently in jail, jointly charged with others with murder, conspiracy to murder and other gang related charges.” The article is then insisting that this East Trinidad group is an affiliate of an affiliate of the Mexican TTOs which means that what they are currently charged for was sanctioned by the Mexican TTOs. This assertion then opens a new can of worms for those pushing massa regime change agenda for Venezuela applied to T&T which they cannot perceive nor rationalize. The reality on the ground is entirely contrary, in fact contradictory as the link is to the Colombian Dons through the Cleansed federation, a closed chapter in the history of the illicit trades in T&T. “Intelligence” manufactured by a regime change agenda has no traction with reality on the ground, cannot appropriate reality on the ground and constitute a relevant intervention! This is the basis of massa phony war on drugs that enables the Game never controls it.

March 30, 2022 The said Sunday Express article attempting to describe reality on the ground in both Venezuela and T&T Gangland should have revealed the reality of Gilberto Malony Hernandez El Malony who created the Tren de Llanos in the service of the Colombian paramilitary Dons located in Sucre state Venezuela where for one and a half years he moved product from Sucre state to T&T and the rest of the Caribbean for the Colombian Dons. In November 2021 El Malony was killed by the FAES in San Juan de Unare, Sucre which collapsed his operations and dispersed his band to Guarico. From 2019 to November 2021 El Malony and his Tren de Llanos was the player in T&T for the Colombian Dons with developments in the illicit trades in T&T and the Caribbean flowing back to Sucre state resulting in his demise in a hail of bullets. There will be no mention of this reality in articles using regime change discourse this is a reality that will remain masked, denied by delusion.

Murder Rates for 2019 to 2021. A Comparative Analysis

Country 2021 2020 2019

Jamaica 49.1431 43.93 44.87

US Virgin Islands 43.1754 45.00 40.50

St Lucia 39.7206 30.49 26.80

T&T 31.923 28.29 38.13

Belize 30.3650 25.65 32.80

The Bahamas 29.9813 18.56 24.68

Puerto Rico 21.7802 18.40 9.93

Venezuela 10.8413 13 10.21

For 2021 the murder rate analysis for CARICOM, the Caribbean island chain and Venezuela is only applicable for states where the annual murder toll was made available in the public domain. Given that the murder tolls made available in the public domain was forthcoming from states who over time have significant murder rates affords some semblance of an overall picture of violence in CARICOM, the Caribbean and Venezuela.

For the three year period 2019 to 2021 there are categories of murder toll behavior: those where the murder rate declined in 2020 and rose in 2021, those where it rose in 2020 and continued rising in 2021 and those where it rose in 2020 and fell in 2021and those where it rose every year for the period. For St Lucia it rose both in 2020 and 2021 which signals the raging gangland wars arising from the impact of transnational trafficking between Martinique and the EU with St Lucia being a satellite in the orbit of transnational organised crime in Martinique and along the dual flow Eastern Caribbean trafficking pipeline (ECTP). The case of Puerto Rico is very instructive as it grows into the premier trafficking point to the mainland USA displacing volumes from the DR sent to the USA. Puerto Rico is now challenging the hegemony of the DR to replace it as the command and control point for the dual pipeline linking the USA to the Caribbean: cocaine, marijuana, synthetic drugs, heroin, illegal aliens to the USA and USD cash, weapons, ammunition, materiel to Puerto Rico. This is then the heightening of the hegemony Mexican TTOs through its Gangland affiliates of Puerto Rican origin as Asociacion Neta, ethnic Puerto Rican gangland from the USA and other affiliates of USA Gangland. The US Virgin Islands experienced a marked increase in the murder rate in 2020 then a decline from that rise in 2021 starting from an already region leading base in 2019. This territory is showing all the signs of its integration into the evolution of the illicit trades in Puerto Rico which is now challenging its previous integration into the illicit trades of the DR to the USA. During 2020 the impact of the lock down and the transition in who exerts hegemony over the trades contributed to the marked escalation in the murder rate. Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and St Lucia are then all being impacted by the hegemony of the Mexican TTOs as it is exerted over the Caribbean Basin to the detriment of the Colombian paramilitary Dons. Venezuela’s rise in its murder rate in 2020 then decline in 2021 points to the rise in violence arising from the impact of the lock downs applied during the Covid pandemic, which again illustrates the reality, contrary to the false reality propagated by the regime change agenda and its mouthpieces as insightcrime. This is the reality that hegemony of the Mexican TTOs over the illicit trades of Venezuela has eliminated the chaos and violence for the sake of violence endemic to the model of the Colombian paramilitary Dons in Venezuela. Hence the frantic efforts of the foot soldiers of the Colombian paramilitary Dons in T&T from sections of the oligarchy to gangland, to turn T&T into a redoubt for the Dons. Belize, T&T and the Bahamas constitute the group in which for the period the murder rate fell in 2020 but rose in 2021 The Bahamas outstripping the murder rate of 2019 in 2021 unlike T&T where 2019 together with 2017 and 2018 comprised the rivers of blood, the most potent murder spree in T&T history. It is noteworthy that in T&T, Belize and The Bahamas the evolution of the hegemony of the Mexican TTOs over the illicit trades of these three territories impacted the terrain of crime which resulted in the 2020 drop followed by the spiral outstripping the murder rate of 2019 in Belize and The Bahamas. The diversification of drug flights into Belize where the Mexican TTOs are now challenging the old hegemony of the Colombian Dons and the Mexican traffickers excluded by the Mexican TTOs have resulted in greater tonnage per flight with a diversity of landing sites serviced by a sophisticated transporter sector comprising agents of the Belizean state. This is the hallmark of the Mexican TTOs in operation in Belize. Mexican TTOs’ hegemony has impacted traditional Belizean urban Gangland and new Gangland spaces are under contest that are external of the traditional urban context. In 2022 the Cleansing was then unleashed in the urban context. Clearly the old order of Gangland in Belize is now being dismantled replaced by the order of the Mexican TTOs. There are affiliates of US gangland in Belize whose parent chapters are now affiliates of the Mexican TTOs which is now impacting urban Belizean gangland. The Bahamas has now been reawakened by the Mexican TTOs as a major jump off point to mainland USA where illicit drugs, illegal aliens etc are moved to the USA with a counter flow of cash, weapons etc. Gangland Bahamas is also under deep seated renovation as the order of the Mexican TTOs exerts its hegemony on the ground. In T&T the Gangland truce proclaimed on June 30, 2020 still holds as the players in Gangland are now affiliates of the order of the Mexican TTOs. Those excluded from this order of the Mexican TTOs either serve the Colombian paramilitary Dons or are the have nots of the Game who have responded to their deprivation with a wave of violence against the person and property. The murder rate for 2021 did not approach that of 2019 in T&T because of the unchallenged hegemony of the Mexican TTOs over Gangland any change in the velocity of murders in 2022 will then be driven by the attempt of the Colombian Dons and their allies in T&T to challenge the order of the Mexican TTOs. During the years of the rivers of blood the federation aligned to the Dons was effectively cleansed sending the Message to the uptown traffickers of the Dons. Any renewal of violence against the order of the Mexicans TTOs will result in uptown targets becoming fair game.

Jamaica stands alone in CARICOM and the Caribbean island chain for violence in the social order. This propensity to violence especially in the communities of the working class and the under class, the marginalized spaces of Jamaica, which is escalating, is the legacy of pre-independence and independence politics of Jamaica in a two party system which combined politics, political mobilization, political parties with gangland of the marginalized spaces. In Jamaica today there is in operation a hierarchy of gangland with Jamaican transnational gangland at the apex of the hierarchy with low level gangs dominating the marginalized spaces of Jamaica. Jamaican transnational gangland effectively patrols the boundary between uptown and the marginalized spaces thereby feeding off and exploiting to its advantage and hegemony both spaces. Jamaican transnational gangland are all affiliates of the order of the Mexican TTOs which has resulted in an expansion of the volume of the transnational illicit trades of Jamaica whilst the marginalized spaces are ground down under the weight of an order of gangland that exploits the already limited resources of these spaces with a propensity to violence.

The Power Relation Between the Licit and Illicit Gun Markets of T&T

No illicit market can survive, grow and sustainably generate wealth without organic links to the licit/legal market. With the gun market of T&T there is a direct organic relationship between the expansion of the size of the licit gun market and the supply of goods and services from this legal market to the illicit gun market. All gun markets need a sustainable supply of goods and services especially the services of trained specialist personnel. There must be a supply of guns, ammunition, gunsmiths and trainers, All licit and illicit guns have to be serviced, maintained and repaired, there must be a supply of spare parts and persons with the requisite training and experience must be available to maintain the stock of guns in use. The viability of an illicit gun market demands that the sustainable supply of these inputs which outstrip the demand for guns and shots must be sustainably in place. In an illicit gun market there is then a constant search to recruit skilled technicians to satisfy these core needs which leads them logically to the licit gun market of the national security apparatus and the private sector gun market. In a gun market as T&T where there is no right to bear arms the expansion of FULs issued to the public expands the private sector gun market affording opportunities to the illicit gun market to become part of the licit gun market towards acquiring the goods and services demanded by this illicit market. This is an illicit drug market dream come true in a state where there is no right to bear arms where they engage gunsmiths and trainers marrying this expertise to illicit gun and ammunition flows. A flood of FULs cannot protect the citizenry nor those who have been granted guns for the expanding licit market strengthens the illicit gun market in an arms race that the private sector gun market always loses. The expansion of the granting of FULs is then the arming of an unarmed or in their estimate a too lightly armed oligarchy whilst the have nots are compressed between the nexus of the licit/illicit gun markets. The days of the shortage of reputable gun smiths serving Gangland in T&T is now history when there was a scramble to sigh up for correspondence courses in gunsmithing to the extent where the government banned such courses is long gone. Now there are smiths of repute and spare parts to burn. The explosion of the private sector gun market has impacted the illicit gun market in another telling way through the volume of spent cartridges available which has spawned reloading operations producing shots for the illicit gun market in the entire Caribbean island chain. The kits are brought in sourced in US and its Caribbean dependencies with the reloading presses, and the supply of spent cartridges especially from private sector and national security apparatuses are diverted to the illicit market to reload shots then sold on the illicit market in T&T. To police this reality the continued focus on colonial social control rather than the dismantling of organised crime groups will never present a viable threat to the illicit gun market whose best friend is the politicisation of crime by the politics of race hate. There is no political will to deal with reality on the ground only with make believe delusional reality. Down the rabbit hole.