Bogotá closed the week with a homicide vendetta. Only in the time between Monday, August 22 and 26 of the same month in the capital there were 11 crimes for different reasons: three bagged, two hit men, a murder in the middle of a fight and a suicide of a 20-year-old in the channel of the 63rd street spout with Boyacá avenue.
The list of macabre events that have occurred in Bogotá, according to the authorities, has different origins and explanations; among them, homicides due to fights, theft of people that triggers a murder, family arguments that end in a fatal event, or as in the case of the bagged, a war between criminal structures dedicated to micro-trafficking that have decided to take over the city at any cost. place.
The main point of reference for the wave of violence in Bogotá is the Venezuelan transnational criminal organization, the Tren de Aragua, which, due to its seizure of territories for the distribution and sale of drugs, has unleashed a wave of tortured and bagged bodies in several towns of the city.
Although the authorities have dealt forceful blows to this criminal structure in recent weeks, such as the capture of Alfredo Brito, alias Alfredito, and Víctor Salazar, two murderers who were caught torturing and bagging a young Venezuelan in a house in Patio Bonito, in the town of Kennedy, the truth is that this criminal cell has continued to attack and this week left a balance of three more bagged.
Aragua train in Bogota
The Secretary of Security, Aníbal Fernández de Soto, said in a press conference that “the organization of the Aragua Train is the main responsible for the cases of homicides that have occurred in Bogotá, where the bodies are left in bags in the space public in different areas of the city. We are advancing with the Police and with all their capacities and with the Prosecutor’s Office to dismantle this structure responsible not only for these homicide cases, but also for the dynamics of crime around drug trafficking and theft, among others, ”he said.
Now, the question that remains for the authorities is, what to do with the Aragua Train in Bogotá? According to the commander of the Bogotá Metropolitan Police, Brigadier General Carlos Triana, the inter-institutional work with the Attorney General’s Office and all the specialties of the National Police are already getting ahead to move quickly with the investigation process and subsequent capture and individualization of this criminal organization.
In this way, the mayor of the city indicated that the first action that will be taken to agree on an offensive strategy against this structure is a security council in which the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, will be. “We cannot allow anyone to kill anyone. This is not the law of the jungle. The president told me: ‘human security and total peace begin with Bogotá’”.
However, information revealed by the Prosecutor’s Office shows that those from ‘Aragua’ have already taken over towns such as Kennedy, Bosa, Mártires, Ciudad Bolívar, Santa Fe and are reaching Chapinero, which could complicate the actions of the authorities.
Complicated landscape
As I had already anticipated Timethis situation poses an enormous challenge for the authorities of the capital, even more so considering the striking level of violence used by this gang to gain territorial control of various sectors of the city.
The passage of the Aragua Train through Colombia and for Bogotá it is not new. In fact, information known by this newspaper in September 2021 shows that some leaders of this criminal group would be operating in Cesar, Atlántico, La Guajira, Bogotá and even in Soacha, where their criminal portfolio ranges from express kidnappings, contract killings and vehicle theft to arms and drug trafficking.
According to Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan researcher, the Aragua Train is known for its high level of danger and unity of command. “It is estimated that in Venezuela alone they have more than 5,000 men and, in addition to Colombia, they are in Peru, Ecuador and even further south.”
For the expert Gustavo Niño, director of security for Futuros Urbanos, this band has a peculiarity and that is that they work as an outsourcing. “They reach small gangs and offer them security and more strategic planning. (…) They seek to internationalize crime.” For him, the joint work between all the forces of the State is essential to prevent it from continuing to expand.
“The first thing is a great articulation from the levels of the State. Let’s keep in mind that the increase in drug use in the cities has generated more struggles for control and that means an additional challenge to the authorities”, she says.
He adds that the authorities must work jointly with police and military intelligence to dismantle these gangs, or else stopping their progress will be increasingly complicated.
However, there are slightly more pessimistic views about the establishment of the criminal structure in Bogotá. For one of the agents who is carrying out the investigation in the Prosecutor’s Office on the criminal gang, the outlook is not encouraging.
According to the researcher’s vision, “what we will see in the coming months or years is that the criminal groups that have traditionally operated in Bogotá and that have the real control of the drug business, want to recover the territory that the ‘Aragua’ groups occupied. , and there will be a lot of violence there because the Colombian criminal is much more strategic and vindictive; while the ‘Malditos de Aragua’ operate under a technique of terror and from the shadows. The Colombian criminal is not reckless.
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