Venezuela's Baseball Academies Batting Away Extortion Threats
With dozens of Venezuelan athletes now playing on Major League Baseball teams in the United States, a powerful gang has begun to extort local academies and scouts in charge of finding, training and developing them in their home country.
In late August, heavily armed men in north-central Aragua state appeared in a video in which they threatened scout Alexis Quiroz, who owns the AQ Sport Agency baseball academy, El Pitazo reported.
Weeks earlier, two of Quiroz’s bodyguards were shot at in the state capital of Maracay. Gunmen also shot up Quiroz’s home prior to the attack on his bodyguards, according to El Pitazo. The attack was allegedly carried out by members of the Tren de Aragua, a powerful “megabanda,” or gang of more than 100 members.
https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/venezuela-baseball-academies-batting-away-extortion/