The attack on October 13, 2025, in the Los Cedros neighborhood, north of Bogotá, against two Venezuelan activists has reignited alarms about the safety of exiles from the Nicolás Maduro regime in the region. For many refugees, this is not an isolated incident, but rather a chilling turning point in a strategy of transnational repression that relies on state support, complicity, or tolerance.
Yendri Velásquez, a human rights activist, and Luis Peche Arteaga, a political analyst, both residing in Colombia since 2024, were the targets of a planned attack, Semana magazine reported. Alleged hitmen waited for them as they left a building in the north of the city and fired at least 15 shots. Both survived.
The Tren de Aragua-Maduro allegation
The shooting raised alarm among opposition figures and security analysts, who linked the attempted double homicide to the regime’s established doctrine of transnational repression. Venezuelan opposition leaders and security analysts believe that the attack was likely carried out by the Tren de Aragua (TdA). This transnational criminal organization (TCO), declared a terrorist organization by several countries in the region, is believed to execute the regime’s doctrine of hybrid or asymmetric warfare, allowing Caracas to project political violence across borders while maintaining plausible deniability.
Both activists had fled growing repression in their country last year, the Associated Press (AP) reported. According to Laura Christina Dibb, director of the Venezuela program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the incident reflects a pattern of tragedies that repeatedly strike the Venezuelan diaspora, exposing the vulnerability of exiles and the cross-border reach of the regime’s repressive actions.
An exodus under threat
Velásquez and Peche are among a growing number of opposition leaders and civil society members who left Venezuela after the contested 2024 elections, which international organizations denounced as rigged by the Maduro regime. That vote triggered a new wave of repression that left more than 2,000 people detained, including human rights defenders and critics of the regime.
With their departure, both joined the nearly 8 million Venezuelans who have fled their country since 2018, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Many found refuge in Colombia, although leaders of the diaspora warn that safety is eroding under persistent, targeted violence.
Following the recent attack, representatives of the Venezuelan community and civil society organizations warned of growing fear among those who previously considered the Andean nations safe. Arles Pereda, president of the Venezuelan Community in Colombia (ColVenz), said that fear of possible persecution has been latent for years, especially given the ease with which hitmen can be hired in Colombia due to the presence of criminal groups, AP reported.
The Venezuelan exodus has become a multiple target of threats. While the regime seeks to extend its control beyond its borders to intimidate and silence activists in exile, migrants are also exposed to criminal networks that take advantage of their vulnerability. Along migration routes and in host countries, criminal organizations dedicated to human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and forced labor find fertile ground in the institutional neglect faced by thousands of displaced persons.
TCOs as tools of asymmetric war
“Venezuelan migration is being used as a weapon of war,” Carlos Augusto Chacón, executive director of the Hernán Echavarría Olózaga Institute of Political Science in Bogotá, told Diálogo, referring to the use of the Venezuelan exodus by criminal organizations such as the TdA.
This opinion is shared by Panamanian analyst and professor of international relations at the University of Panama, Euclides Tapia, who told Diálogo that “the Venezuelan criminal organization TdA has seen mass migration as a gold mine of opportunities, using it as a platform to expand its criminal operations.”
The security and defense expert pointed out that this situation must be understood in the context of a hybrid or asymmetric war, in which authoritarian states, such as Venezuela, employ destabilization strategies through non-state actors such as the TdA. “Since the time of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has adopted a doctrine of asymmetric warfare, in which the use of criminal structures is part of the national security strategy,” Chacón said.
The precedent of Ronald Ojeda in Chile
The attack on the two Venezuelan activists in Colombia is not an isolated case. The kidnapping and murder in Chile of dissident Venezuelan military officer Ronald Ojeda in 2024 set an alarming precedent. Ojeda, a strong critic of Maduro was found dead after being kidnapped in Santiago.
Investigations concluded that the crime was politically motivated, orchestrated from Venezuela, and carried out with the involvement of the TdA. In January 2025, the Chilean General Attorney’s Office confirmed that the central hypothesis pointed to an operation financed by senior regime officials, including Diosdado Cabello, Maduro’s so-called minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace, considered the main political operator and ideologue of Chavista intelligence. According to daily La Tercera, payment for the murder was allegedly channeled through an intermediary, with support from a TdA faction.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela James Story, told AP that the Maduro regime “has the capacity to carry out such an attack in Colombia” and has long been monitoring its adversaries in the neighboring country. “All members of the opposition living in Bogotá were concerned about the possibility of being attacked or under surveillance,” he said.
TdA: A transnational proxy
Refugees and organizations of the Venezuelan diaspora in Colombia maintain that the attack in Bogotá confirms a pattern of transnational intimidation. In 2024, Semana collected testimonies from persecuted individuals in Bogotá, Cali, and border cities who reported being followed and harassed by alleged Venezuelan intelligence agents.
The testimonies point to the TdA, already declared a terrorist organization by several countries in the region, as the regime’s operational proxy and transnational arm, with deep ties to senior Chavista officials.
“Transnational organized crime, such as the TdA, represents one of the greatest global threats because it combines illicit activities, terrorism, and territorial control as tools of modern warfare,” Chacón said.
According to data from InSight Crime and Transparencia Venezuela, the TdA currently operates in more than a dozen countries in the region, with a consolidated presence in Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. The organization specializes in human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and control of illicit economies in border areas, in addition to having activity in the Caribbean. It has also extended its influence to Guyana and Suriname, linked to the control of illegal mining in southern Venezuela.
