This is the horrifying moment a young Venezuelan boy is tortured before being executed by one of the country's ruthless gangs.

Sickening video, which is not being published by Mail Online, shows the boy tied up with a gang in his mouth while his tormentors talk about money and a house.

Brandishing a knife, a man then steps forward and slices the boy's ears off before delivering several brutal blows to his neck with a heavy machete, killing him.

Horrifying video has emerged showing the brutal murder of a 13-year-old boy in Venezuela, believed to be a victim of the country's 'megabandas' gangs

It is thought the boy was a victim of one of the country's 'megabandas', criminal gangs formed in the violent jail system which specialise in kidnapping, extortion and targeted killings.

The video came to light after being published by News.com.au, which attributed to the killed to one of the gangs.

Crime expert and journalist Javier Ignacio Mayorca told Efecto Cocuyo in March 2017 that there are at least 19 of the gangs operating in Venezuela.

Footage shows a man slicing the boy's ears off before hacking at his neck, killing him

The megabandas largely eschew a life of drug-running, leaving that to the cartels, and instead aim to work alongside them as enforcers.

Each band consists of at least 30 and up to 60 people, Mayorca reports, and operate in the states of Apure, Carabobo, Guárico, Lara, Miranda, Portuguesa, Táchira, Sucre and Zulia.

The groups establish themselves as 'local insurgencies' in areas where the police force is weak or absent, before seizing control of vast swathes of territory.

A weak government, led by Nicholas Maduro who has faced violent protests calling for his resignation, has allowed the gangs and the violence they practice to flourish.

Once the most prosperous nation in South America, Venezuela is now subject to rampant poverty and shortages of basic supplies and medicine.

In 2016 statistics complied by the Observatory for Violence in Venezuela revealed the country to be the second most violent on earth, excluding those at war, and behind only El Salvador.

Nicholas Maduro has been blamed for an economic collapse that has seen Venezuela go from South America's richest country to one of its poorest

A faltering economy has left food and basic supplies scarce and created a environment in which crime can flourish. Pictured, a boy grabs at corn spilled on a road in Puerto Cabello

The observatory is relied upon to provide the data, since the government has withheld its own figures for the last 14 years.

According to their data for 2017, there were 26,616 deaths deemed to be the result of violence, which was actually a fall on the previous year.

However, that was largely because of a drop in the number of deaths caused by government actions, while all other kids of violent death increased.

On of the biggest increased came from deaths by hired killers, the report notes, with more than six murders each week attributed to this cause.

'Venezuela remains in 2017 as the second most violent country in the world,' the report says, 'second only to El Salvador, which maintains its high murder rate.'