Woman rescued from alleged prostitution operation run by brutal gang from Venezuela, Indiana police say

Indiana police said that they had rescued a woman from a prostitution operation at a home in Indianapolis, and they believe it might have been run by members of a brutal gang from Venezuela.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said that they were called to a home on Eagledale Drive after a teenage girl told a neighbor on Tuesday that she and three other women were being trafficked for sex.

They interviewed a woman who told them that she had been brought to Indianapolis from Boston, Massachusetts, in order to work to raise money to bring her family to the United States. Instead, she was forced to have sex with a man who was called “the boss.” Then, she was forced into prostitution.

A man who allegedly ran the home and collected the money from prostitution was identified as 29-year-old Alejandro Santiago. Police arrested Santiago and charged him with three counts of promoting prostitution.

Police were unable to identify the man known as “the boss,” but they said that they suspect the prostitution home was being run by a brutal Venezuelan gang called El Tren de Aragua.

El Tren de Aragua was founded in 2012 in a Venezuelan prison. The gang has spread from Venezuela to other countries in Latin America, including Chile, Columbia, and Peru.

The gang is reportedly behind a rash of smartphone robberies in New York City, some of which have been violent. Officials said that two immigrants who were caught on video brutally attacking NYPD officers in January were members of the transnational criminal gang.

Mary Nolen, an associated director at Hope Center Indy that helps victims of trafficking, told WTHR-TV that people should take an online class to help them identify the signs of human trafficking.

“Typically, so much of trafficking is relational in the United States. Probably at least 90 percent of the time they’re being trafficked by someone they know that could be a boyfriend or their own family members,” she said.

“It can be hard for those of us, or people that aren’t around the issue of sex trafficking, to know what to do,” Nolen added. “But typically, we say if you see something, say something and there’s hotlines you can call.”