The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has of­fi­cial­ly list­ed Venezue­lan crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion Tren de Aragua as a ter­ror­ist en­ti­ty un­der the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act, Chap­ter 12:07.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the des­ig­na­tion was grant­ed by the High Court yes­ter­day fol­low­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion made un­der Sec­tion 22B of the Act.

Tren de Aragua is a transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion orig­i­nat­ing in Venezuela. The list­ing al­lows lo­cal au­thor­i­ties to ap­ply en­force­ment mea­sures, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial sanc­tions and as­set freezes, against in­di­vid­u­als or en­ti­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with the group.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge pre­vi­ous­ly con­firmed the group’s pres­ence in T&T. Dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on June 5, he said, “Yes, there is some ev­i­dence that they are. There are a few mem­bers here. I know that based on my pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tion as a crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney. So I would say yes.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figuera yes­ter­day weighed in on the de­vel­op­ment.

He said, “This is the re­sponse ex­pect­ed when placed un­der pres­sure by the US gov­ern­ment. The Aragua Train was cre­at­ed by the Colom­bian dons to serve them, and the dons are in T&T since the late 1960s. Is there then any doubt that the Aragua Tren is al­so here? The ques­tion is how many and what is their role? Es­pe­cial­ly in light of the 21st-cen­tu­ry drug wars and the in­cur­sion from T&T to Su­cre state, Venezuela.”