The criminal path of Larry Changa, co-founder of the mega-gang Tren de Aragua

Between 2018 and 2024, Larry Amaury Álvarez Núñez, aka “Larry Changa,” could be found in three countries: Venezuela, where he was born; Chile, where he is suspected of having lived until 2022, and in Colombia, where he was arrested on July 1 and is currently awaiting extradition. Álvarez is the co-founder of the mega-cartel Tren de Aragua, which got its start in the Venezuelan prison of Tocorón. There was an international warrant issued for his arrest in September 23 by a court in Pozo Almonte, a municipality in Chile’s far north, and requested by the Prosecutor’s Office in Tarapacá.

Changa’s name appeared on a wanted list from the same Prosecutor’s Office in Chile, along with Héctor Guerrero Flores, aka “El Niño Guerrero,” leader and co-founder of the Tren de Aragua and whose whereabouts are still unknown. Álvarez’s high rank within the criminal organization, which has spread across several Latin American countries, is reflected by the fact that his arrest, which took place in the Colombian city of Armenia, was announced by the country’s president Gustavo Petro via a post on his X account, in which Petro highlighted the fact that Guerrero had been wanted in 196 countries.

The 47-year-old Changa entered Chile in January 2018 through Santiago airport. He established himself as Guerrero’s right-hand man and led an important Tren de Aragua cell known as La Compañía. He set up seemingly legal businesses, like a fast food restaurant and a bakery in the Chilean capital, but he is also charged with drug trafficking during the same time period.

In April, two months before his capture in Colombia, Changa was informed in absentia by the Tarapacá prosecutor’s office about a series of charges against him, the most serious of which is being the head of a criminal organization. He was also charged with drug trafficking.

Larry, Estrella and Satanás

The first clues as to the presence of the Venezuelan transnational cartel in Chile were investigated by the Tarapacá prosecutor’s office in 2022, led by prosecutor Raúl Arancibia and now headed by attorney Trinidad Steinert. That same year, in a mega-operation that took place throughout three regions of the country, more than 20 members of the criminal organization were arrested and charged with kidnapping, extortion, homicide, as well as arms and drug trafficking and migrant smuggling.

Also in 2022, in the town of Quilpué, Valparaíso, located 68 miles from Santiago, the head of Tren de Aragua in Chile, Carlos González Vaca aka “Estrella”, was captured. Hernán David Landaeta Garlotti, also known as “Satanás” and identified by the police as a hitman within the group, was arrested as well. Last June, Satanás played a central role in violent incidents that took place in Chile’s largest high-security prison, which is located in Santiago. Along with 17 other prisoners, he destroyed several cells and threatened guards.

After Estrella’s arrest, Changa fled Chile. Prosecutors believe that his departure was motivated by thoughts that he could be the next to be detained. His successor, who Changa supervised from afar, was his lieutenant Eduard Nava Navarro, who is now being held alongside Satanás in the high-security Santiago prison.

To date, more than 20 members of La Compañía are in pretrial detention in Chile, and will see their cases go to court over the next few months.

Escape from Venezuelan prison

Journalist Ronna Rísquez, author of the book El Tren de Aragua: la banda que revolucionó el crimen organizado en América Latina (Tren de Aragua: the gang that revolutionized organized crime in Latin America) says that two of Álvarez’s brothers also entered into Venezuela’s criminal world. The eldest died in a face-off with the police; and the youngest, nicknamed “El Yormancito,” was arrested on drug trafficking charges in July 2008. When he was released in 2015, he became involved in a homicide in Aragua, then fled to Bolivar state (which borders Brazil) and then abroad, according to Rízquez.

The first time that Changa was imprisoned was in August 2002, according to records from Venezuela’s Supreme Court (TSJ). He was 27 years old and had been an accomplice in car theft, for which he was sentenced, in 2003, to four years and eight months in a Carabobo state prison.

After being released in January 2006, Álvarez murdered a man who refused to sell him spare parts in the town of Turmero, Aragua. According to TSJ documents, the Venezuelan justice system sentenced him to 17 years and six months in prison for the crime of aggravated intentional homicide during an aggravated robbery.

When Changa entered the Aragua Penitentiary Center, better known as Tocorón prison, he associated with three other incarcerated individuals: Guerrero; Yohan José Romero, aka “Johan Petrica” and José Gabriel Álvarez Rojas, “el Chino Pradera”. Together, they founded the Tren de Aragua. Changa was only in prison until 2015, at which point he managed to escape and meet up with his brother El Yormancito, who was also on the lam, in Bolívar state. From there, according to Rízquez, they each took different paths.

Luis Izquiel, a criminal lawyer and professor of criminology at the Central University of Venezuela, says that after Changa’s escape from Tocorón, he should have been flagged by the Venezuelan justice system. “It is completely strange that Larry Changa entered Chile through an airport in 2018,” he says.

Rísquez points out that there are certain aspects in Changa’s biography that “call attention to the management of the judicial and penitentiary systems” in Venezuela. One of them is that Larry Changa was registered from 1991 to 2015 in the Venezuelan Institute of Social Security, where he was listed as making his social security payments. His name can also be found on the website of the General Directorate of Environmental Health, which is operated by the Ministry of Health.

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