Tren de Aragua

There is a broad agreement among reporters that the TdA first emerged as a criminal force around 2014, in a prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, around 130kms west of the capital Caracas. The establishment’s official name is the Centro Penitenciario de Aragua, but it is widely known as Tocorón prison. Its inmates also call it “la Casa Grande” or Big House. Like various other penitentiaries across the country, Tocorón has had a form of hybrid management where the official prison authorities partially withdraw, letting prison gang leaders, known as pranes, take over the day-to-day running of the facilities, as well as associated criminal activity.