🚂 Maduro’s train and a brothel in Congress

Trump finds help from Chile to El Salvador in a crackdown against Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua crime gang. And Peru’s discredited politicians sink lower amid prostitution scandal

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Ignacio Portes & Lucas Berti
January 31, 2025 • Reading Time: 2 minutes

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Boric and Bukele join Trump against Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua

A 2010 photo of Nicolas Maduro (right), the president of Venezuela, and Diosdado Cabello, considered second in line of command. Photo: Harold Escalona/Shutterstock

A 2010 photo of Nicolas Maduro (right), the president of Venezuela, and Diosdado Cabello, considered second in line of command. Photo: Harold Escalona/Shutterstock

Chile’s attorney general directly implicated a senior Venezuelan official last week in the gruesome assassination of an exiled lieutenant in Santiago, a case that had long raised suspicions about the potential involvement of the Nicolás Maduro government. 

Driving the news. Attorney General Ángel Valencia, citing witness testimony, accused Diosdado Cabello — Venezuela’s powerful interior minister and Maduro’s right-hand man — of orchestrating the killing.

👉 Why it matters. Investigators suspect that Cabello commissioned Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang to carry out the crime. Since his inauguration, US President Donald Trump has paid some attention to the group, classifying it as a terrorist organization on his second day in office.

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