The reality is a shock for the United States: the dizzying drop in the number of murders in Venezuela is due to the arrival of “thugs who think that crime is part of daily life”

Violent deaths in Venezuela have fallen to their lowest level in 22 years as criminals increasingly join the millions fleeing the shattered socialist nation — many of them entering the United States to pursue their own twisted version of the American dream.

Once considered the most dangerous city in the world, Caracas has seen homicides drop 25% from 2023, with the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence recording 26.8 violent deaths per 100,000 residents, compared to a rate of 35.3 per 100,000 residents in 2022.

But now, as Venezuelans increasingly flock to the U.S.-Mexico border, reports of newly arrived migrants committing horrific crimes have shocked Americans — including that of two men arrested in connection with the brutal kidnapping , the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. in Texas last week.

Former President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that the oil-rich socialist regime was emptying its prisons and sending violent criminals to the United States as he campaigned for a second term.

But security experts say the real reason is more likely that criminals and gangsters are now looking to escape the bankrupt nation and go to where the money is.

According to InsightCrime, the country’s dire economic situation, combined with the mass exodus of the population, has reduced opportunities for those seeking to extort, kidnap and steal from them.

“Crime is decreasing in Venezuela because of the destruction of the country’s economy… because of the loss of opportunities for crime,” OVV director Roberto Briceño-León told InSight Crime.

Although the government does not release official crime data, Venezuelan security official Remigio Ceballos Ichaso claimed that overall crime had fallen by 32 percent – without specifying what type of crime that figure included.

José Antonio Colina, founder of Veppex, an organization that defends Venezuelans persecuted by the country’s regime, told DailyMail.com that many of the new arrivals accused of horrific crimes have never known democracy or the rule of law and act in the United States as they were authorized to do at home.

“Many of them are minors who were born and raised in a country where there is neither justice nor respect for the law,” said the former Venezuelan military officer, exiled in Florida since 2003, when he was accused of conspiring against then-President Hugo Chavez.

“These new migrants are proof that socialist Venezuela is a failed country: its society is rotten and it now exports thugs who think crime is just part of ordinary life.”

Most Venezuelans accused of crimes in the United States are indeed mostly young men, including several teenagers.

In February, 15-year-old Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa allegedly shot a tourist in the leg in Times Square before fleeing the scene and shooting two NYPD officers.

And earlier this month, Bernardo Raul Castro-Mata, 19, allegedly opened fire on two NYPD officers who tried to stop him on his scooter, which had no license plates.

Castro-Mata, who entered the United States illegally at Eagle Pass, Texas, last July, reportedly told police he was a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and that shootouts with police were “common practice.”

“Venezuelan police officers get shot a lot in my home country because criminals think they have a chance to get away,” Mata reportedly told the NYPD after his arrest, also informing them that Tren de Aragua members smuggle firearms into migrant shelters inside food delivery packages to evade metal detectors.

The notorious gang has been labelled an “invading criminal army” by US lawmakers and one of its members is suspected of the brutal murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, has been charged with the murder of Riley, 19.

Venezuelan expat and writer Christian Caruzo, who spent more than a decade unsuccessfully trying to legally migrate to the United States with his brother, told DailyMail.com it was infuriating to see the worst of his country original successfully enter the United States.

“I was never able to find a way that would allow both of us in, and I refrained from doing anything illegal despite the despair in which I sometimes found myself drowning in the middle of everything that was happening in Venezuela,” he said from Italy. , where he managed to emigrate with his brother.

Caruzo agreed with the assessment that the past two decades have fundamentally changed Venezuelan society, creating desperate citizens willing to do anything to survive.

“Venezuela is a country that can easily turn anyone, man or woman, into a cruel people,” Caruzo said. “This life is unfortunately the only thing that many young Venezuelans have known, which in no way justifies it. »

Caruzo follows news of Venezuelans committing crimes in the United States and says they are committing the same crimes that millions of Venezuelans have fled to escape.

He added: “The crimes are very similar to those we are used to seeing in Venezuela. Thefts, police being shot and bystanders caught in the crossfire are routine in Venezuela. »

“It is extremely likely that any Venezuelan will say the same thing, because either you have been a direct victim, or members of your family, or someone you know has been, in one way or another, a victim of crimes of this nature.

“This kind of insecurity is one of the reasons that pushed almost eight million people to leave the country, not counting the oppressive hand of the regime and institutionalized repression, which is a whole other gargantuan beast in itself. »

Unlike their Latin American neighbors, Venezuelans do not traditionally have a migrant culture: in 1990, there were only 42,000 Venezuelans in the United States, compared to 282,000 Colombians.

Venezuelans began leaving the country in significant numbers in 2000, just a year after Hugo Chavez was elected, as the country’s wealthiest feared nationalizations and coming socialist policies, Caracas Chronicles reports.

The United States is currently experiencing a third wave of new arrivals from Venezuela, which began in 2017, and has seen the country’s poorest and most desperate people leave their homes to walk to the border between United States and Mexico, crossing Central America through the perilous Darien Gap.

Along with millions of innocent migrants, criminals, including professional gangsters, have also managed to sneak into the United States and have made headlines in recent months.

Gangsters took advantage of the migratory wave to hide among legitimate asylum seekers: more than 334,000 Venezuelans crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2023, second only to Mexicans.

“They are breaking into local economies where Venezuelans live and taking control of underground crime through the use of excessive force,” former Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair told the New York Post. “They will start shooting prostitutes controlled by rival gangs and carry out the executions live on social media in order to establish their presence. »

The political and economic crisis has forced more than 7.7 million people to leave the country since 2014, even more than Ukrainians and Syrians.

This is a rare case of mass migration from a country which is not at war but which experienced one of the most extreme reversals in recent history after the takeover of power. socialists 25 years ago.

New York Mayor Eric Adams, after a series of crimes allegedly committed by Venezuelans, made a point of declaring that the majority of Venezuelan asylum seekers who entered the country in recent years have complied with the law.

However, high-profile crimes committed by Venezuelans are damaging the reputation of law-abiding Venezuelans, Veppex founder Colina told DailyMail.com.

“They not only harm the United States, but they also affect Venezuelans who live here, especially those who have been here for a while.

“At Veppex we ask that Venezuelans who commit crimes face the maximum weight of the law so that they serve as an example and that those who come here understand that they cannot act as if there is no had no laws here, like they did in Venezuela.

“And they can’t come here and tarnish the good reputation of people who have proven themselves to be productive members of American society.”