by WorldTribune Staff, June 11, 2025 Real World News

A human trafficking ring in Peru tied to the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has been busted by the Peruvian government with the assistance of a U.S. veterans group.

The gang members were swept up by Peruvian law enforcement during a human trafficking sting in northern Lima this past weekend.

Aerial Recovery aided in pre-raid and post-raid support for the Peru National Police. Following the operation, the organization provided material support, counseling services, and protection for victims of the trafficking ring. / Photo courtesy of Aerial Recovery

Aerial Recovery, a U.S. nonprofit organization mobilizing military veterans, assisted law enforcement teams and also worked to ensure the victims received necessary care and treatment, the Washington Exmainer’s Timothy Nerozzi reported on Wednesday.

Eight locations were raided, involving hundreds of officers. Police arrested 10 alleged operatives of La Guerrilla Pobre — a gang operating as a faction of Tren de Aragua.

The Northern Lima District Attorney’s Office reported that eight victims were rescued from illicit crime dens operating clandestinely in public-facing businesses throughout Independencia, San Martin de Porres, and Los Olivos.

“Women victimized by the network of alleged traffickers, some of them minors, were reportedly lured with promises of legitimate work and had their passports seized by their captors,” Nerozzi noted.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order designating Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization on Jan. 20. He cited the gang’s “complex adaptive systems, characteristic of entities engaged in insurgency and asymmetric warfare” that “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.”

“These young women were lured under false pretenses, stripped of their freedom, and told that escape meant death,” Aerial Recovery co-founder and CEO Britnie Turner said. “This operation demonstrates what is possible when governments and nonprofits work in lockstep to dismantle evil and rescue the vulnerable.”

“We repurpose veterans, first responders, law enforcement, all of that, to go rescue kids. That’s what we do. That’s our specialty,” Turner said. “They have all this training already in them. We obviously do additional training to specialize in this work, but it’s a really cool kind of match made in heaven of giving these veterans a focus, which saves their lives. And it saves their lives to go continue to save lives.”

Aerial Recovery co-founder and Jeremy Locke, Turner’s husband, served for decades in the U.S. Army Special Forces with five combat deployments.

“He’s a 20-year veteran — 10 of those years as a Green Beret Special Forces — and so he has over $10 million for government training in him,” Turner said. “We can come and help, we have people who have the heart to help you with this specific issue. And we will offer you everything from the current best practices on how to handle survivors when you rescue them, to how to do a raid, to how to find [perpetrators].”

Aerial Recovery works with foreign governments through private-public partnerships that allow it to play a supportive role while leaving the missions to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, which Turner quickly pointed out are the drivers of justice.

“When we work with these countries, we’re very much doing the Special Forces approach, which is working as a force multiplier — so by, with, and through the locals,” Turner said. “It’s all about bolstering their efforts, giving them confidence, giving them resources so they’re proud of the fight they have instead of us being their savior.”

Carlos Maza, Aerial Recovery’s director of anti-human trafficking efforts, told the Washington Examiner that the organization is focused on law enforcement outfits that have “limited financial resources” and need experts capable of rendering support at all stages of the process.

“We empower the Peruvian National Police to do their role, which is finding these bad guys, investigating them, and ultimately identifying and rescuing as many girls as possible — that’s where we come in,” Maza said.

“The Peruvian National Police, just like most Latin American law enforcement entities, have very limited financial resources to do the work that not only focuses on a bad guy, but most importantly, is focused on the victims — the girls that have been trafficked,” he continued. “[Law enforcement officers’] role is to put the bad guy in jail and someone else to come and worry about the victims.”

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  U.S. veterans group helps Peru arrest human trafficking ring tied to Tren de Aragua, WorldTribune.com