Is Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua Behind Surge in Chile Kidnappings?

The last decade has seen a 135% increase in kidnappings in Chile, with the greatest surge occurring between 2021 and 2022, which coincided with Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s most brutal prison gang, putting down roots.

The kidnapping data, which registered 361 cases in 2013 and 850 cases last year, comes from a report released by Chile’s Attorney General’s Office. The biggest jump, between 2021 and 2022, saw kidnappings increase from 500 cases to more than 820.

The data showed that organized crime-related kidnappings tied to the settling of criminal scores, extortion, or revenge, also increased during this time. While these cases represented just 4.5% of all kidnappings in 2022, the report found that share increased to 12.4% the following year. 

At least 25% of kidnappings documented in Chile in 2023 involved a foreign perpetrator. The report found that Venezuelans were involved in 73% of all kidnapping cases with a non-Chilean aggressor in 2023, which marked a 58% increase from the year before.

SEE ALSO: Northern Chile Struggling to Contain Skyrocketing Homicide Rate

One of the most high-profile cases illustrating this dynamic was the kidnapping and murder of Ronald Ojeda. Alleged members of the Tren de Aragua crime group allegedly snatched the former Venezuelan military official from his apartment in Chile before killing him. The crime took place in Maipú, a commune located southeast of the capital Santiago where authorities had previously uncovered several “torture houses” allegedly belonging to the group.

InSight Crime Analysis

The increase in kidnappings in Chile coincides with the expansion of various Tren de Aragua factions across the country, which use this predatory crime as a way to exert territorial control in areas where they are establishing a foothold.

Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful criminal syndicate and the only group that has managed to establish itself outside the country. This transnational expansion first started in 2018 in the context of the mass exodus of millions of Venezuelans amid that country’s ongoing economic crisis.

In Chile, Tren de Aragua first appeared in the border regions of Arica and Tarapacá before reaching the cities of Santiago and Concepción. The group partakes in a range of criminal activities, from drug trafficking to kidnappings, migrant smuggling, extortion, and human trafficking.

But it wasn’t until 2021 that the group’s expansion across Chile became evident.

“They [Tren de Aragua] had strong operations in 2021 but became even stronger in 2022,” said Mario Carrera, a prosecutor in the northern Arica region of Chile.

That same year, other regions like Antofagasta and the Metropolitan Region of Santiago started to note a significant rise in kidnappings alongside the growth of Tren de Aragua’s presence.

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Amid this expansion, Tren de Aragua’s criminal factions have used kidnappings as a mechanism for controlling local populations and punishing those who do not pay the extortion fees demanded by the group.

“We started to see kidnappings associated with the failure to pay extortion fees or other taxes imposed by the group in order to exert territorial control, and we can associate that with organized crime,” Pilar Lizana, a senior investigator with AthenaLab, a Chilean think tank, told InSight Crime.

SEE ALSO: How Tren de Aragua Controls the Destiny of Migrants from Venezuela to Chile

While drug trafficking remains one of Tren de Aragua’s main revenue streams, Carrera, the prosecutor, said that kidnappings have also served as a way to protect that part of the group’s criminal portfolio in the same way that targeted attacks and murders do. 

There is a direct relation between the organized crime-related kidnappings recorded by authorities and cases of small-scale drug trafficking, according to a 2023 report published by Chile’s Attorney General’s Office.

However, while Venezuelan criminals may play an outsized role in the proliferation of kidnappings in Chile, they are not the only criminal actors involved.

Data collected by the special investigations unit of the Chilean police found that both Chileans and Colombians also played an important role in these crimes, although the police did not specify whether or not they belonged to any specific criminal group.