Venezuelan organized crime is a vast network. Beyond the well-known Tren de Aragua (TdA), dozens of local criminal organizations are utilized by the Nicolás Maduro regime as an extension of its power and have begun to expand alarmingly into other Latin American countries.
“The expansion of these criminal groups in the region provides the regime with effective operators to combat potential threats and opposition activity, which has also spread throughout the region due to the massive Venezuelan migration,” Venezuelan investigative journalist Casto Ocando told Diálogo.
According to the expert, the operational link between the regime and Venezuelan criminal groups is part of an asymmetric strategy in which Caracas leverages international activities, such as drug trafficking, to undermine perceived enemies.
The Juancho Gang
The 2023 arrest of Juan Gabriel Rivas Núñez, known as Juancho, for gold smuggling in the state of Roraima, Brazil, demonstrates how, in addition to the TdA, other Venezuelan criminal groups are expanding beyond the border. Juancho is the leader of the Juancho Gang, also known as the Juancho Syndicate, the oldest criminal organization operating in southern Bolívar state, very close to the Brazilian border. His activity is focused on criminal control of Las Claritas, home to Venezuela’s largest gold deposits and a major hub for illegal gold smuggling. This area generates enormous revenues for other criminal groups such as Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN).
Juancho was the subject of a high-profile escape in May 2025 from house arrest in Brazil after handing his electronic ankle bracelet to a decoy. His current whereabouts remain unknown.
Originally from Colombia, Juancho became a Venezuelan citizen and has at least two identity documents. “His other name is Wilson Starling Aponte Rodríguez, an identity he obtained thanks to his ties to officials in the Nicolás Maduro regime,” Ocando says.
The relationship between alias Juancho and the regime has been widely documented. In 2012, for example, he was arrested by police with a large number of weapons, Bolívar state police credentials, and a significant amount of cash.
Yet, he was released the next day “on orders from the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office, according to the report of the police commissioner who led the proceedings,” says Ocando.
According to a report by nongovernmental organization Transparencia Venezuela, Juancho’s ties to the regime have been so influential that he managed to have police records of his crimes — including homicides — completely erased from Venezuela’s Integrated Police Information System (SiiPol). “In addition, the alleged alliance between Juancho’s gang and the Bolívar state government, under Francisco Rangel Gómez [2004-2017], was widely denounced in a report presented to the Venezuelan National Assembly in 2016,” explains Ocando.
According to the expert, Juancho’s activities are not only well known to the Maduro regime but are also widely permitted because of the profits he makes from the trafficking of precious materials.
El Tren de Guyana
Among the criminal groups linked to Venezuelan military officials and denounced in the Transparencia Venezuela report, El Tren de Guyana (TdG) stands out. It is known for its trafficking of gold, drugs, extortion, and its powerful arsenal. The organization, founded around 2010 in Ciudad Guayana, Bolívar state, later expanded to the region’s mining areas.
The group was created by Yorman Pedro Márquez Rodríguez, alias Gordo Bayón, along with his second in command, Phanor Vladimir Sanclemente Ojeda, known as Capitán. Despite facing murder charges, Gordo Bayón formally worked for the state-owned steel company Sidor and had contacts with influential political figures. After several arrests and releases, he was murdered in 2014 in Caracas. The gang is currently led by Ronny Yackson Colomé Cruz, alias Ronny Matón, with Santos José Ordinola Martínez, known as Cabezón, as his second in command. Cabezón also head the group’s urban sector and is a member of the Chavista militias Colectivo Simón Bolívar.
“Regarding recruitment, it was learned of the presence of a former military officer known as alias el Cóndor, who was in charge of recruiting teenagers and training them to use firearms,” the report states.
According to reports from dissident former officers of the Venezuelan intelligence agency SEBIN and the Army, the TdG received support from Bolívar government officials, in particular General Julio César Fuentes Manzulli, Secretary of Citizen Security for the state of Bolívar during the administration of Francisco Rangel Gómez. Manzulli facilitated the TdG’s control over some gold mines in Guasipati and El Callao, towns of Bolívar state. In 2022, a rival group calling itself the Frente Revolucionario de El Perú (The Peru Revolutionary Front) — named after El Perú, a division of El Callao — declared war on the TdG, accusing it of operating with the support of state security forces.
The role of Falcón state and drug trafficking expansion
The Venezuelan coastal state of Falcón, located near the Dutch Caribbean islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) and the Colombian region of Catatumbo, a major center of cocaine production, is one of the main departure points for drug trafficking from Venezuela. According to an InSight Crime report, Venezuelan security forces have favored the Guajira Cartel in this area. This criminal organization is based in Maicao and operates on the La Guajira peninsula on the Caribbean Sea, north of the border between Colombia and Venezuela. The report states that their operation “suggests official protection,” to the detriment of the criminal groups in Paraguaná and Sabana Alta.
The Paraguaná Peninsula, in Falcón state, has become a major hub for shipping drugs by sea and air to the Caribbean. “In fact, over the last decade, there has been an increase in the number of clandestine airstrips and speedboats leaving that region, which is also an important oil refining center, with a traffic of oil tankers that are suspected of being used by the Cartel of the Suns to ship drugs to various international destinations,” says Ocando.
Another smaller group, the Lobos, which has no ties to the Ecuadorian gang of the same name, operates in human trafficking and smuggling, with international ramifications, especially in Curaçao and Aruba.
“The expansion of these criminal groups in Latin America provides Maduro with an extensive money laundering network that the regime uses to increase its irregular income, which is invulnerable to sanctions,” Ocando concludes. Ultimately the expert asserts, this network allows the regime with the means to finance the operational strategies necessary to maintain its power in the region.
