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Marco Rubio is Right

  • Writer: Rick de la Torre
    Rick de la Torre
  • 1 day ago
  • 3 min read

The CBS News article attempting to fact-check Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s warning about Tren de Aragua’s presence in the U.S. isn’t just misleading—it’s emblematic of a deeper problem. It quotes a recently declassified National Intelligence Council (NIC) memo claiming the Maduro regime “probably does not” direct the gang’s movement into the United States.



There it is again: “probably.” The intelligence community’s favorite crutch when it doesn’t want to get caught being wrong—or worse, politically inconvenient.


I served as CIA Chief of Station in Latin America. I know how these regimes operate. I know how they use gangs like Tren de Aragua the same way the Soviets used front groups during the Cold War: as deniable weapons of disruption. And I know how the intelligence community ties itself in knots to avoid stating the obvious when the obvious threatens bureaucratic comfort or runs counter to the narrative of whichever administration they’re quietly resisting.


Let’s walk through what Rubio said and why he’s dead right.


Tren de Aragua isn’t a street gang. It’s a transnational criminal organization with operations in at least nine countries, including the United States. It runs extortion rackets, human trafficking routes, and a regional drug empire. Its headquarters for years was Tocorón prison, which Maduro’s government allowed to become a fortress with nightclubs, pools, armed convoys, and satellite communications. The regime didn’t lose control—they subcontracted it. That prison wasn’t overrun by criminals. It was gifted to them.


When Maduro’s forces finally moved on Tocorón in 2023, they found what looked more like a cartel palace than a state facility. And wouldn’t you know it—Tren de Aragua’s leader, Héctor “Niño” Guerrero, was long gone. No resistance, no shootout, no high-value target captured. Just a suspiciously easy escape, which prison officials “somehow” failed to notice. Caracas called it a victory. The rest of us called it theater.


That’s not just negligence. That’s cooperation.


Rubio’s critics scoffed when he suggested Maduro is deliberately exporting Tren de Aragua to destabilize Latin America and infiltrate the U.S. through our border. But those critics weren’t in the room in Santiago, Chile, when authorities investigated the kidnapping and murder of Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda. According to protected witness testimony, the hit was ordered directly by Diosdado Cabello—Maduro’s enforcer—and carried out by a Tren de Aragua cell. This wasn’t gang freelancing. It was transnational repression.


Meanwhile, here in the U.S., prosecutors in New York charged 27 suspected TdA operatives under RICO statutes. In Texas, ICE arrested documented members in Bryan and Hays counties. In Florida, they’ve been linked to armed robberies and executions. In Colorado, the FBI launched a sweeping raid in Aurora targeting over 100 suspected affiliates. Tren de Aragua is not “emerging.” It’s already here.


And yet the intelligence community is still hedging, still blinking, still hiding behind the word “probably.”


This isn’t just analytical failure. It’s political malpractice.


Because let’s be honest about what’s going on here: the same institutional machinery that downplayed Wuhan, denied the Kabul collapse, and memory-holed the Hunter Biden laptop is now downplaying Venezuela’s most dangerous export. This is the same community that—when it served their political purposes—leaked, smeared, and conspired against the incoming Trump administration in 2016. They had no problem going all in on the Steele dossier. They had no doubts when 51 former intel officials signed a letter saying Hunter’s laptop had “all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.” They’ve been wrong before. They’ve been weaponized before. And they’ve paid no price.


Now, they want us to believe that Tren de Aragua’s expansion into the U.S.—just a coincidence. That Maduro letting a criminal army walk out of prison—just a lapse. That assassinations carried out abroad—just rogue actors.


No. This isn’t incompetence. This is willful blindness, cultivated over years inside institutions that stopped fearing consequences and started fearing accountability. And that rot has a name: risk aversion wrapped in political calculation.


Rubio’s not overstating the threat. If anything, he’s underselling how deep this runs. Tren de Aragua isn’t just a security issue—it’s a test case in whether we’re still capable of recognizing state-sponsored subversion when it doesn’t come in a uniform or a drone. It’s gangs instead of gray-zone militias. Assassinations instead of ambassadors. And our own intelligence apparatus can’t—or won’t—see it because acknowledging it might validate the Trump administration’s instincts.


But here’s what I know, because I’ve seen it up close: when regimes like Maduro’s start pushing their enforcers across borders, they’re not looking for opportunity. They’re sending a message. If our intel agencies won’t say it, then people like Rubio—and yes, those of us who’ve done this job in the real world—will.


The regime in Caracas is exporting chaos. And its most effective courier wears sneakers, carries an illegal Glock, and flashes gang tattoos—not a diplomatic pouch.



 
 
 
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