Spanish police have carried out a sweeping operation, arresting 13 suspected members of Venezuela’s notorious Tren de Aragua gang across five cities in what authorities describe as the first major crackdown on the criminal organization’s presence in Spain. The coordinated raids, conducted between November 6 and 7, 2025, targeted alleged gang operatives in Barcelona, Madrid, Girona, A Coruña, and Valencia, marking a significant escalation in European efforts to stem the tide of Latin American organized crime spreading across the continent.
According to Spain’s National Police, the operation dismantled a cell of the Tren de Aragua gang, which has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States since February 2025. The gang, originally formed in Venezuela’s infamous Tocorón prison in Aragua state in the mid-2000s, has rapidly evolved from a prison-based syndicate into one of Latin America’s most violent and far-reaching transnational criminal networks. As reported by the Associated Press, the group’s activities now span drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, and sexual exploitation—crimes that have left a trail of violence across Latin America and, increasingly, Europe.
Authorities say the Spanish cell played a crucial logistical role for the gang’s Venezuelan leadership. Police investigations revealed that the group was responsible for organizing the arrival and placement of new members in Spain, managing recruitment—particularly of women for sexual exploitation—and facilitating the movement of illicit profits back to South America to support criminal operations there. During the raids, officers seized electronic devices, documents with falsified identities, large sums of cash, and dismantled two laboratories used to produce tusi, a potent mixture of cocaine, MDMA, and ketamine known as “pink cocaine.” Additional quantities of synthetic drugs and cocaine were also confiscated, highlighting the cell’s involvement in Spain’s burgeoning drug trade.
“Most of them were of Venezuelan origin,” a spokesperson for Spain’s National Police told CNN, noting that the majority of arrests took place in Barcelona. The investigation was coordinated by Spain’s National Court, the country’s highest tribunal for terrorism and organized crime cases. Several of those detained were already wanted by Venezuelan authorities and appeared on international alerts, underscoring the gang’s deep entanglement with law enforcement agencies across multiple continents.
The operation’s roots stretch back to 2024, when Spanish police arrested the brother of the gang’s leader, known as “Niño Guerrero,” in Barcelona under an international warrant. This pivotal arrest prompted investigators to dig deeper into the group’s activities in Spain, ultimately leading to the discovery of a wider network operating in various regions, including Barcelona’s El Raval district, the Arc de Triomf area, and Madrid’s El Canaveral neighborhood. According to police statements cited by Colombia One, the cell was dismantled at an “early, embryonic stage,” before it could fully integrate into the local criminal market—a rare stroke of luck in the often reactive world of organized crime policing.
The Spanish operation was not an isolated effort. It received support from Colombia’s National Police and the AMERIPOL-EL PACTO 2.0 project, an initiative aimed at fostering cooperation between the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean countries in the fight against transnational crime. Law enforcement sources cited by Colombia One emphasized that Spain’s geographic position, shared language with Venezuela, and extensive connections with Latin America make it an “ideal platform” for criminal groups like Tren de Aragua seeking to expand their operations into Europe.
The group’s expansion has been fueled by Venezuela’s ongoing economic and political crisis, which has forced more than 7.7 million Venezuelans to flee the country in recent years. As migrants have crossed borders into neighboring countries—and, increasingly, to the U.S. and Spain—Tren de Aragua has taken advantage of these flows to consolidate its presence in new territories, adapting its criminal franchise model to local conditions. This decentralized approach, in which autonomous cells operate under the same name and methods, has made the gang particularly resilient and difficult to eradicate.
Spanish police have accused the detainees of a litany of crimes: drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, extortion, and violent acts. The cell’s activities included recruiting women for sexual exploitation, producing and distributing synthetic drugs, and laundering illicit proceeds. Profits generated in Spain were reportedly funneled back to South America, bolstering the gang’s criminal infrastructure there. The sophistication of the group’s operations—evident in the use of falsified identities, encrypted communications, and complex financial networks—has alarmed European security officials and prompted calls for greater international cooperation.
The international dimension of the crackdown is impossible to ignore. The U.S. government has taken a hard line against Tren de Aragua, with President Donald Trump’s administration designating the gang as a foreign terrorist organization and launching a series of military strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. According to the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, at least 69 people have been killed in 17 strikes since September 2025, with the Trump administration justifying its actions by claiming the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels like Tren de Aragua. However, these actions have drawn sharp criticism from United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk, who condemned the strikes as “extrajudicial killing,” and from lawmakers across the political spectrum in the U.S. Congress, who have demanded greater transparency regarding the legal basis for such deadly operations.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, for his part, has accused the U.S. of using the “war on drugs” as a pretext to destabilize his government and build up a military presence in the region. He claims that the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics are less about combating crime and more about exerting political pressure on Caracas—a charge that has found some resonance among critics of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.
Meanwhile, Spanish authorities remain focused on the immediate challenge: preventing the Tren de Aragua gang from entrenching itself further on European soil. Security experts warn that the group’s criminal franchise model, its ability to recruit locally, and its willingness to exploit vulnerable migrant populations make it a particularly insidious threat. As Spanish police continue their investigations—supported by international partners—they hope that the recent arrests will disrupt the gang’s operations and send a clear message that Europe is not a safe haven for Latin America’s most dangerous criminal organizations.
For now, the dismantling of the Tren de Aragua cell in Spain stands as a rare victory in the ongoing battle against transnational organized crime, offering a glimmer of hope that coordinated international action can still make a difference, even as criminal networks grow ever more sophisticated and far-reaching.
