Seven members of the Los Gallegos criminal organization, the operational branch of the Train de Aragua in the city of Arica in northern Chile, were arrested on Wednesday, May 17, during an operation carried out by a group of that nation’s security agencies.
According to local media, among those detained are five Venezuelans, one Peruvian and one Colombian.
This would be the third blow against the dreaded criminal gang in Chile, carried out by the Criminal Analysis Unit of the local prosecutor’s office and the Narcotics and Organized Crime Brigade of the PDI.
During the operation, which involved the participation of approximately 200 detectives, 31 properties were searched simultaneously, seizing weapons, drugs and documents that will serve to complement the ongoing investigation.
Among the captives is a woman named La China, a Venezuelan national who serves as the leader of the criminal organization’s operations, primarily drug trafficking.
The defendant was the one who coordinated with the defendants who were part of this group of Tren de Aragua, who remain in preventive detention in various prisons in the country.
Sources at the La Tercera PM media outlet said the woman entered Chile through an irregular route, which is why her name or age could not be confirmed. She came to play a fundamental role in the group after the gang’s leaders fell in June 2022 and other operations carried out last January, making it the main target of Wednesday’s raid.
Apparently, La China always had a secondary role in the gang, as an accomplice to one of the men arrested in June 2022, a man named Caracas who was the operational arm and a group of workers selling drugs in Arica. was in charge of collecting vaccines from Venezuelan sex.
After the rest of the leaders were arrested, he was forcibly promoted further up the hierarchy. Since then she was wanted by the police.
At the direction of the Arica Prosecutor’s Office, the seven detainees were made available to be indicted in the Arica Guaranty Court on charges of illegal collaboration, drug trafficking, weapons law violations, human trafficking, among other crimes.
“We have developed an investigative process in which we have established that one of the components concerned with the administration of funds of this criminal structure, including elements of criminal interest, accounting evidence and documents that have a certain Proves the hierarchy within this organization, and the crimes we are investigating,” said Sub-Prefect Marcelo Atala, head of the North Anti-Narcotics and Organized Crime Prefecture (PRECON).
