In 2016, David Hernan Landaeta Garlotti (25) was confined in the Tocorón prison, in the south of the state of Aragua, in Venezuela. He was deprived of liberty, accused of being responsible for different crimes, including murder and contract killing. But his plan in no case included serving a sentence, so he devised a strategy that would allow him, if he was lucky, to escape. So it was. Honoring his nickname “Satan”, he caused real chaos in the prison by activating two grenades: he left dead and injured in his path, and escaped.
Although an Interpol alert was activated against him, he managed to avoid police controls, heading -first- to Peru, where he entered with a false identification. There he kept a rather low profile, although in 2018 he already had the Peruvian police following in his footsteps. Months later, he was apprehended by members of the Criminal Investigation Department of that country, but Landaeta once again managed to flee, his destination now being Chile. The member of the feared Venezuelan cartel called The Aragua train managed to set foot on national territory, after entering through an irregular path, extending its tentacles to our country from the international group.
Given that in the midst of the pandemic, more than 160 irregular steps were created in the northern part of the country, according to data provided by the governor of Arica, Jorge Díaz, “Satanás” had no major impediments to enter. For the rest, it has already been established by the PDI that one of the specialties of the members of this criminal gang is to promote irregular migration. According to figures provided by the Public Security Division of the Undersecretary of the Interior to La Tercera, only in 2021 the Aragua Train entered 3,600 immigrants.
But this international group with a presence in Chile is not the only one that worries the authorities. In fact, it was the undersecretary himself Manuel Monsalve who confirmed that together with the Venezuelan cartel, The police have detected the presence of branches of the Mexicans of the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation.
Who are they? Where do they operate? What crimes are they engaged in? These are the questions that investigators pursuing complex crimes are trying to answer, as it is feared that Chile will become a refuge for this type of organized crime that has penetrated border crossings and threatens to take root.
The Tarapacá Prosecutor’s Office has concentrated the operations in which members of these cartels have been arrested. In fact, it is known that the entrance door for these criminals is in the steps not enabled that exist in the first regions of the country.
One of those who have participated in these operations is the National Anti-Narcotics and Organized Crime Chief of the PDI, the Prefect Inspector Paulo Contreras, who explained that in the north, the Aragua Train -which operates as a kind of “franchise” in national territory-, is mainly dedicated to human trafficking. From the borders, he organizes his strategy, takes over sectors, extorts his compatriots to pay them to “take care of them” and define the key points of the country to carry out his illicit activities.
“The main characteristic of the members of this band is their absolute indifference to life, to the level of risking their own and taking it from a second person. We believe, and we are studying it, that it comes from a cultural issue, because they are societies that have been very affected by violent circuits for a long time. In some way, behaviors such as homicides, death or acts of corruption were normalized in their countries of origin”, commented the police officer. He added that in his catalog of crimes they highlight: kidnapping with homicide, kidnapping with serious injuries, human trafficking, illicit association and illegal possession of weapons.
As the official maintains, “Satanás” -who acknowledged being the author of the homicide registered on March 22 in the La Pampa sector of Alto Hospicio and who was arrested in March-, is one of the leaders of one of the factions of the Train of Aragua operating in Chile, but it is certainly not alone. They have also identified as another of the leaders Carlos Gonzalez Cowalias “Estrella”, who -according to the researchers- has a direct line with the owner of the clan: Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Floreswho is imprisoned in Venezuela.
In addition, they located Carla Perez Jimenez (partner of the “Star”), to Luisa Moreno Rodriguez, Carlos Mendoza Gomez, Joel Henriquez Castle, Jhoblimer Vásquez Santana y Juan Blanco Berroteran. All were arrested in parallel operations that were carried out in Iquique, Quilpué, Quillota and Santiago. Likewise, in the southern part of the country, specifically in Puerto Montt, six other people linked to the gang were arrested, specifically for trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
In Arica, in addition, the prosecution and the PDI disrupted another of the gang’s operational arms: Galician. It is a group of 11 people from whom 10 weapons, a grenade, ammunition, 37 kilos of drugs and bulletproof vests were seized. Likewise, in the middle of the operation, a body was found that remained buried.
Regarding the characteristics of these individuals, Prefect Contreras maintains that “except when they commit their crimes, all these people are characterized by having a low profile. They do not live in great luxury. They are organizations that do not see profit personally. They do not see the profit in terms of itself, but in terms of the organization, and for this reason they send what they obtain to Venezuela”.
But not everything refers to the Caribbean. Currently there is a history of fractions of Mexicans from Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation who have arrived in Chile. In the case of the first, a branch of the feared cartel led by renowned drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, their presence was detected in Alto Hospicio and Iquique, in the Tarapacá Region, where they were directly linked to other drug gangs as providers and incipient “generators” of marijuana. The PDI official explained that through Operation Harvest the indoor cannabis cultivation operations that they were carrying out were neutralized.
And in the case of the second group, the PDI detected them when they tried to unload a shipment of 898 kilos of cannabis in the port of San Antonio. On that occasion, and in what they called Operation Azteca, they arrested three Colombians and one Chilean.
According to the analysis carried out in the Public Security Division of the undersecretary’s office, The incursion of both gangs into national territory is due to the attempts that these cartels are making to increase their power in the region after the sentence handed down against “Chapo” Guzmán”. The interest is increasing, as they say in the distribution, because Chile also has the highest rate of marijuana consumption and the third highest rate of cocaine in the region.
In addition, according to data they have received from the prosecution, the Chilean territory has been used by Mexican cartels to evade control of the routes that the United States satellite and intelligence system has.
Regarding their way of organizing, Contreras specified that “the structures of the Mexican cartels generally reflect the classic pyramid design, but when recognizing the operating groups, these they have quite a lot of atomization, which seeks in principle to install a kind of primary fragmentation that makes it difficult to reach the dome. In our country there is no history of rivalries between them, these are eventually given in the territories of incidence of each one in Mexico”.
As if that were not enough, the latest police finding and that has further ignited the PDI alerts are the recent tentacles that have been discovered of the Chinese mafia “Fujian Bang”. Recently, 13 of his allies were arrested and it is not ruled out that some more have entered the country, thus specifying an importation of criminal gangs never seen before in the country.