An official recently appointed to a leadership post in the US Department of Defense previously led a think tank that published false reports of Tren de Aragua activities in the United States, contributing to misinformation about the threat posed by the gang.
The official, Joseph Humire, was in recent weeks named the head of the military office responsible for security strategy and policy in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean – a position formally known as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Before joining the Department of Defense in June, Humire worked for more than a decade as the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, a think tank based in Washington, DC that focuses on security issues in the Americas.
While Humire was at the helm, the center began publishing a Tren de Aragua “activity monitor,” which purports to track crimes and arrests related to the Venezuelan gang across the United States.
InSight Crime identified five event entries in the tracker that appear to have been completely fabricated.
One of the false events is dated March 10, 2025 – one day before Humire testified in the US Congress regarding immigration and security issues, including Tren de Aragua.
The entry claims the San Antonio Police Department arrested an alleged Tren de Aragua member named Marcus Antonio Vargas-López after he robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. It cites an article from the San Antonio Express-News as the source of the information.
SEE ALSO: Debunking 3 Myths About Tren de Aragua
InSight Crime found no independent confirmation that this event actually occurred. The link to the article goes to an empty webpage, no other news outlets had matching coverage, and the San Antonio Police Department said it did not find anyone with that name in their records.
An entry dated March 18 – one week after Humire’s congressional testimony – contained similarly unsubstantiated information.
The entry claimed the Austin Police Department arrested alleged Tren de Aragua member Daniel Oswaldo Peña-Gómez following an incident outside a nightclub in which he attacked a victim with a knife. It cited a non-existent article from the Austin American-Statesman as its source.
The Austin Police Department told InSight Crime it had no reports of a stabbing outside a nightclub on that date, and that the name of the alleged perpetrator did not appear in their records. InSight Crime found no other independent confirmation of the event.
The three other false entries – all dated shortly before or shortly after Humire’s congressional testimony – follow the same pattern of being located in Texas and citing nonexistent newspaper articles as their source.
When alerted to the false entries, the current executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, Leonardo Coutinho, told InSight Crime that the organization would work to fix the issue. Coutinho did not respond to questions about why and when the organization posted the false events.
As of publication, only one of the events listed had been removed from the tracker.
Humire and the Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.
InSight Crime analyzed more than 90 entries in the monitor and found that many others relied on unverified social media or partisan sources. Some incidents are included multiple times, inflating the gang’s perceived presence and activities.
In addition to testifying before Congress, while serving as the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, Humire authored a December 2024 report on Tren de Aragua published by the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank. He also appeared on the wide-reaching conservative Fox News network as an expert on the gang.
InSight Crime Analysis
The false reports come in the context of US President Donald Trump and his allies amplifying Tren de Aragua’s purported expansion into the United States as a justification for efforts to detain and remove large numbers of unauthorized immigrants, particularly Venezuelans.
SEE ALSO: Tren de Aragua: From Prison Gang to Transnational Criminal Enterprise
Several criminal networks believed to have ties to Tren de Aragua in the United States may have developed fairly sophisticated operations. But nothing points to a cohesive, nationwide gang network. Nor is there solid evidence that the Venezuelan government directs the activities of gang members in the United States, as alleged by Humire in his congressional testimony, echoing Trump’s similar claims.
The proliferation of misinformation and politicized narratives about Tren de Aragua risks hindering the development of sound policy responses to effectively combat the gang. As law enforcement agencies focus increasing attention on the group, the spread of false or exaggerated reports could divert attention and resources away from actual threats.