Intel’s analysis of Tren de Aragua misses key aspects of the Maduro system: Experts

A former senior officer of the Venezuelan army is working with a recent report from the U.S. intelligence community about a large-scale Tren de Alagua gang nationwide.

Former lieutenant colonel Jose Arocha of the Venezuelan army told Fox News Digital that a recent Intel community report denied Tren de Aragua had connections with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Tren de Aragua, also known only as TDA, is a violent Venezuelan gang that has been terrorizing American cities for the past few years. The organization is linked to high-profile murders such as the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the capture of an entire apartment building in Aurora, Colorado.

When his first move back to the Oval Office, President Donald Trump directed the State Department to designate the TDA as a “foreign terrorist organization.”

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Arocha, a national security expert at the Center for Security and Free Society, spoke with Fox News Digital that he agreed with the Trump administration’s actions against Tren de Aragua, which he believes is a tool for the Maduro regime’s “asymmetric warfare”, that is, to declare untimely soow in the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

“The Maduro regime does not need to send troops to the United States. It sends criminals,” he said. “The TDA is a plug-in rebellion – assembled in prisons, deployed outside the country.”

However, Arocha’s statement is in stark contrast to a new public memorandum released by U.S. intelligence agencies last month, which denies any strong links between the Maduro government in Caracas and the gang.

“While Venezuela’s allowable environment enables TDA to function, the Maduro regime may not have a policy of working with the TDA, nor has it directed the TDA movement to the United States and operations,” the report noted.

The report said the intelligence community concluded that “the Venezuelan law enforcement action proves that the regime sees TDA as a threat; uneasiness in cooperation and confrontation, rather than top-down instructions [that] Characterize the connection between the regime and other armed groups; the dispersed composition of the TDA will make this relationship logistically challenging. ”

Meanwhile, Arocha said: “The lack here is that the intelligence report is too narrow because the lens of TDA is lens.”

“It’s about crime and immigration, but they lack the dimension of war,” he said. “What they missed is that the United States was the enemy for the Maduro regime, and it has been the enemy for many years.”

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President Nicholas Maduro (Jesus Vargas/Getty Image)

“TDA is not a gang,” he continued. “This is the promoter department of the Venezuelan regime in a hybrid war strategy, and it’s an asymmetric war journey. This is the missing point. This is the explanation of the local gangs now in 10 countries, including the United States. It’s incredible, it’s incredible, it’s impossible without the president of the country.”

Although the report points to the enforcement actions taken by the Maduro government against the TDA, Arocha explained that in fact, Venezuelan prisons, including the “Tocorón” prisons that the gang started, were more like resort hotels.

“Tocorón, [which] They say it is the center of crime in Venezuela, it is not a prison, but a palace of organized crime. Full equipment, we have a zoo, nightclub, and even the pool for prisoners there. ” he said.

Arocha also believes that the raid on Tocorón by the Venezuelan government in 2023 “seems to be orchestrated” and that the main leaders of the TDA were able to escape through prefabricated tunnels.

“While the regime has obtained the optical effect of fighting crime, the mobility of TDA remains intact,” Arocha told Fox News Digital.

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The picture shows two Tren de Aragua gang members arrested on the southern border. (US Border Patrol)

Intel’s report acknowledged that escaped TDA members “could be assisted by low-level military and political leaders in Venezuela.” But for Arocha, the connection extends directly to the top.

He pointed out that the dissident Ronald Ojeda of Venezuela conducted abduction and murder in Chile, and Reuters reported that the Chilean government is investigating the Chilean government, as the Tren de Aragua operation initiated by Maduro’s government.

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Reuters reported in March that Chilean Attorney General Angel Valencia said that Ojida’s murder “has no characteristics of normal crime” and that “all the evidence we have in the state of investigation leads us to conclude that a cell or group has a connection to Trund Alagia, with political motives, originating from the order of political nature.”

The store also reported that the Venezuelan government denies the allegation was unfounded.

Arocha further pointed out that former Maduro Vice President Tareck El Aissami accused him of having connections with Hamas and Hezbollah to prove that the Venezuelan government is embedded with the worst enemy of the United States.

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In this handout photo provided by the El Salvador government, prisoners allegedly associated with the criminal organization in Secot were linked to the criminal organization on March 16, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Salvador government through Getty image)

El Aissami has been arrested on corruption charges and is currently in jail.

Arocha smiled and said: “He also has a great influence on Iran, China and Russia. Now, he is in prison, which means he lives in a palace in the prison.”

He continued: “The Venezuelan regime is representative of Russia, China and Iran, especially China.” “They use Venezuela [to] In Latin America, especially, it creates chaos…not directly facing the United States, but using criminals to use false information, using every tool they have, indirectly causing chaos. ”

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In response, Arocha urged the Trump administration to continue to take a whole administration role in combating the TDA. He urged the government to “increase our scope” through experience with the TDA (such as the Chilean government).

“They have knowledge about TDA now. We have to understand what they have learned, and we have to put all the pieces together to have the big picture instead of the local picture,” he said. “Then, I’m very sure we’ll realize that the disappearance, the main link is in Caracas.”