MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump says a US strike killed Niño Guerrero, leader of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang

Trump said the operation was “coordinated closely” with Venezuela, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held that US forces struck a Tren de Aragua compound

US President Donald Trump announced on Friday night that his country's Southern Command had killed, in a “swift and lethal” strike, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias Niño Guerrero, whom he described as the leader of Tren de Aragua, “one of the most bloodthirsty terrorist organizations on the planet.” Venezuela's government confirmed hours later the death of the criminal boss, which occurred in Bolívar state, in the country's southeast.

The two accounts differ on the role of the United States. Trump said the operation was “coordinated closely” with Venezuela, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held that US forces struck a Tren de Aragua compound. The Venezuelan statement, by contrast, defined it as a “combined operation” between security agencies of both countries, based on technological cooperation and intelligence sharing; Venezuelan sources said there was “never” a US military presence on their territory during the attack. Trump accompanied his announcement with a video, not independently verified, in which a projectile hits a building that erupts in flames.

Southern Command described Guerrero Flores, 43, as a “fugitive.” Considered the leader of Venezuela's most powerful criminal gang, he ran the organization for more than a decade from the Tocorón prison, in Aragua state, which he turned into a fiefdom with a swimming pool, nightclub and zoo. He escaped in 2012 and, after being recaptured, was serving a sentence when, in September 2023, the Venezuelan government took the prison with 11,000 personnel; the boss had already fled and his whereabouts had been unknown since. The United States designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization in February 2025, and the group is a central focus of Trump's immigration and deportation policy. Chile had also been seeking him since 2023.

The operation came three days after helicopters of the Venezuelan Armed Forces carried out an incursion into the Las Claritas mining enclave, in Bolívar, near the border with Brazil and Guyana, an area with mines linked to Tren de Aragua. Trump framed the action within his cooperation with the government of Delcy Rodríguez, who was left in charge of the country after the capture of deposed president Nicolás Maduro on January 3. “Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else,” he said.

The president presented the model as the one he seeks to extend across Latin America: the United States already carries out strikes against criminal structures in Ecuador, and Guatemala in May agreed to joint operations. Hegseth said he would keep working with security partners “like Venezuela” and the countries of the “Coalition of the Americas against the Cartels.”