06/08/2026
By Oscar Alvaro

The College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Global Studies program invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation proposal defense by Oscar Alvaro-Montes on "Not One Expansion: A Conditional Theory of Criminal Growth of Tren de Aragua in the Americas".

Date: June 16, 2026
Time: 9:30 – 11 a.m. EST
Location: This is a virtual defense. Please contact oscar_alvaro@student.uml.edu for the Zoom link.

Dissertation Committee

  • Angelica Duran-Martinez, Ph.D. (Chair). Associate Professor, Political Science Department, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Amber Horning Ruf, Ph.D. , Associate Professor, School of Criminology and Justice Studies; University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Juan Pablo Luna, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Diamond-Brown Chair in Democratic Studies, Political Science Department, McGill University

Abstract:
Using the case of Tren de Aragua (TdA), this study develops a conceptual and methodological framework to identify and compare distinct forms of criminal expansion. Drawing on judicial records from Chile, Colombia, and the United States between 2018 and 2025, the dissertation classifies TdA-related activity into three ideal types: name attribution, episodic coordination, and intermediated territorial presence. Rather than assuming that criminal organizations expand through a single process, the study treats expansion as a set of observable relational configurations that vary across contexts.

Methodologically, the project combines process tracing, qualitative coding, and social network analysis to reconstruct the actors, relationships, and coordination mechanisms documented in court proceedings. Judicial sources are used to determine the type of expansion in each country. A contextual analysis based on official reports and investigative journalism help to determine market conditions, institutional responses, and criminal competition that may affect the type of expansion.

The dissertation argues that the form of TdA-related activity observed in each country reflects the interaction between contextual conditions that enable cross-border criminal activity and conditions that limit the consolidation of specific relational structures. This dissertation looks to offer a more precise approach to analyzing criminal expansion while contributing to broader debates on transnational organized crime, violent non-state actors, and the production of cross-border relations combining political science, criminology and sociological approaches.