Dozens of motorcycles, caked in the reddish mud of the gold mines, travel the narrow road through Las Claritas, a town in southeastern Venezuela near the border with Guyana and Brazil. On both sides of the road, small brown-walled businesses offer food, mining supplies, and medical services.
For travelers heading to Brazil along Troncal 10, the highway that cuts across southern Bolívar state, Las Claritas might look like just another mining town. But this is the fiefdom of Yohan Jose Romero, alias “Johan Petrica,” one of the founders of Tren de Aragua.
*This article is the third in a nine-part investigation, “Tren de Aragua: Fact vs. Fiction,” analyzing the truth about the gang, as well as its evolution, current operations and how it may change in the future. Read the full investigation here.
Petrica and his criminal group control every aspect of life in the town, also known as Kilómetro 88 for its location along that stretch of the road. Miners, shopkeepers, sex workers, and residents alike must follow the social rules he dictates, pay the taxes he sets, and obey the rulings he issues as judge.
Although locals know he is one of the founders or “papás” of Tren de Aragua, the gang’s name is rarely mentioned. Even calling him by his alias is forbidden. “They call him El Viejo. If you say ‘Johan Petrica,’ you’re dead. You don’t say that name,” a Las Claritas resident told InSight Crime on condition of anonymity.
Still, multiple sources interviewed by InSight Crime in Bolívar said members of Tren de Aragua – including its leader, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero” – have spent time in Las Claritas since authorities intervened in Tocorón prison in September 2023.
A 2024 Venezuelan Supreme Court document makes the same claim, contradicting the rest of the government, which insists the gang is a “media fiction.” It asserts that what remains of the group is operating from the mining enclave.
“A large part of this criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, is currently based in the country and is also led from the mines along the Sector 88 road in Bolívar state by another of its leaders, Yohan José Romero, alias “Yohan Petrica.”
But in Bolívar, the group does not operate like the prison-based megabanda that expanded across the region. Instead, it functions as a sindicato – the term used for criminal groups involved in illegal mining in Venezuela. Mining in Las Claritas, whose gold deposits are among the largest and most productive in the country, generates lucrative profits. At the same time, the gang enjoys impunity from state and security actors.
Johan Petrica: The Mining ‘Pran‘
Petrica is no ordinary criminal leader. His role as a founder within the gang’s structure developed in the shadows, allowing Niño Guerrero to take the spotlight. Still, media reports cite him as a prison leader around 2010, before Guerrero arrived at Tocorón.
His name briefly faded from view after he was believed to have been killed in 2015 during a series of high-profile raids targeting criminal gangs in San Vicente, Aragua state. But years later, he resurfaced in Bolívar. In Las Claritas, a criminal group had controlled mining activity in the area since at least 2010. Its leader, Juan Gabriel Rivas Núñez, alias “Juancho,” had maintained agreements with former Bolívar Governor Francisco Rangel Gómez, who authorized the gang’s mining operations, according to an official report. But in 2017, with the arrival of Justo Noguera Pietri as Bolívar’s governor, the arrangement changed.
Noguera, a pro-government military officer, altered the mining terms set by his predecessor and the criminal groups entrenched in the Orinoco Mining Arc (Arco Minero del Orinoco – AMO), the state-designated mineral exploitation zone in Bolívar created in 2016. The Las Claritas sindicato found a solution to navigate the changing landscape: bring in a new player the governor could engage with – someone like Petrica.
The small town saw changes after Petrica’s arrival. He was also known locally by another name, Darwin Guevara. His political connections surpassed even the powerful ties Juancho had enjoyed, and soon residents began seeing senior government figures visiting the local cockfighting ring – a recreational hub for the gang’s lieutenants, according to Bolívar residents and miners interviewed by InSight Crime.
SEE ALSO: Maduro’s El Dorado: Gangs, Guerrillas and Gold in Venezuela
They also began seeing more social, sporting, and even musical events, activities common in Tocorón and other Tren de Aragua strongholds. Since then, national and international artists have visited Las Claritas. To celebrate Mother’s Day in May of this year, the town hosted a large event featuring singers from Venezuela and Colombia. Children’s Day in June was marked with street shows and toy giveaways, as shown in videos posted on social media.
The two companies sponsoring the latter event – and many others – are Minera Maranatha C.A. and Black Lion C.A. Both operate as mining partnerships, a murky arrangement through which companies ally with the state for extractive activities, while also functioning as charitable foundations for the town. According to a 2023 ethnographic study by researcher Ludovic Joxe, both organizations are tied to the sindicato.
With each passing year, Petrica’s power and Las Claritas’ mining operations grew more consolidated, and the power-sharing pact between Juancho and Petrica began to fracture. In June 2023, security forces temporarily targeted Juancho’s faction – a move that, according to a Las Claritas resident with knowledge of the events, was orchestrated by Petrica himself.
In November 2023, Juancho was arrested in Brazil, and Venezuela’s Supreme Court requested his extradition, which was granted in April 2025. In January 2025, Juancho was placed under house arrest in Boa Vista, but in May he fled Brazil, leaving behind a look-alike wearing his electronic ankle monitor, according to Brazilian press reports.
Juancho’s absence has cleared the way for Petrica, who now appears to have crowned himself the undisputed leader of the mining enclave.
Gold Ties
While the fall of Tocorón can be read as a rupture in the pax mafiosa agreements that Nicolás Maduro’s government maintained with Tren de Aragua, it does not appear to have affected the ruling party’s relationship with Petrica and his sindicato in Las Claritas.
Operating power in Bolívar does not come free. The sindicato must work to ensure Maduro’s continued hold on the presidency. In June 2024, a month before Venezuela’s presidential elections, when InSight Crime visited Las Claritas, banners promoting Maduro’s reelection campaign and images of “Súper Bigote” – a cartoon superhero based on him – lined the town’s main road.
On election days, residents were coerced into voting for candidates from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela – PSUV), according to locals interviewed at the time.
Although Petrica is the subject of an Interpol red notice issued by the Venezuelan state for his leadership role in Tren de Aragua, this has not affected him. In the town there are at least three offices belonging to different security forces. Along the highway from Ciudad Guayana, Bolívar’s capital, to Las Claritas, there are regularly more than a dozen checkpoints manned by various agencies.
Senior Chavista officials are also aware of Petrica’s activities and those of Tren de Aragua. In March 2024, Venezuela’s Supreme Court, in its extradition request for Gerso Guerrero – the brother of Niño Guerrero – following his arrest in Spain, acknowledged that much of the gang remains in the country, led by Petrica from the mines.
“According to actions carried out through cyber patrols, it was determined that much of this criminal organization Tren de Aragua is currently in national territory and is likewise led from the mines located along the road in the Sector 88 area of Bolívar state, by another of its leaders, named Yohan José Romero, alias “Yohan Petrica,” the document states.
No security operations in Las Claritas targeting Tren de Aragua have been registered, despite repeated claims by some politicians that the gang has been dismantled.
Las Claritas: The Last Refuge?
To a tourist, the mining town might seem peculiar. A shop selling giant teddy bears contrasts with the layer of clay dust covering its streets, motorcycles, and façades. For residents, however, the real spectacle is its visitors. After the intervention at Tocorón, “strange people” began arriving in town. Locals say they are gang members who managed to escape the prison.
“Stranger people have come. People you don’t even know. And since you don’t ask… Here you have to do this – be blind, deaf, and mute,” a local shopkeeper told InSight Crime on condition of anonymity.
SEE ALSO: A Golden Opportunity: Maduro and Venezuelan Miners Target Essequibo
The gang’s tight control and the fear it imposes limit what residents are willing to say. When they dare to speak in confidence, everyone mentions one figure who stands out from the rest. Niño Guerrero has been a frequent visitor to Las Claritas since roughly a year before Tocorón fell. InSight Crime has not been able to independently confirm whether he stayed in Las Claritas at that time, or if he is still in the area.
“The thing is, you’re not going to see him. You won’t see those figures every day. But you’ll see him riding a motorcycle. You’ll see him because he walked into a store. Above all, you recognize them by the women and the cars,” one resident said.
Las Claritas’ isolation – about a six-hour drive from Bolívar’s capital – combined with restricted access to the area and the impunity guaranteed by state actors, provides the sindicato with security and protection. Adding to these advantages is the hefty criminal rent generated by illegal mining at a time when gold prices are at historic highs in international markets.
While Tren de Aragua finds a sanctuary there, these conditions do not replicate the other benefits and logistical advantages Tocorón offered. The prison allowed the gang to maintain continuous recruitment and strengthen its chain of command – a task far harder to achieve in Bolívar, where the pool of recruits consists mainly of artisanal miners. This also limits the emergence of new lieutenants who could rise to leadership positions.
Las Claritas’ remoteness, while an advantage, also has a downside: it makes rapid escape impossible for members without access to helicopters, which can take off from a nearby airstrip.
Although gold trafficking is one of the most lucrative criminal economies, it depends heavily on the actions of military and government officials who regulate the trade, limiting the gang’s autonomy. Any attempt to challenge the rules the regime imposes could cost the group its territory. And unlike in urban regions such as Aragua – where the gang had multiple neighborhoods and commercial areas to expand its presence and criminal portfolio – the mining enclave limits opportunities, with surrounding areas dominated by other sindicatos that have their own arrangements with the state.
With little chance of regaining a logistical hub like Tocorón in Venezuela, sources indicated that Tren de Aragua began looking abroad for a place with the conditions it needed to operate. Colombia emerged as the most promising destination – rich in criminal opportunities and a large Venezuelan migrant population, though not without its challenges in what is a crowded criminal landscape.