The US military has killed the leader of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang in an air strike, President Donald Trump announced on social media, posting footage of a green building and shed being blown up. Trump said the United States Southern Command delivered “a swift and lethal kinetic strike” to execute Niño Guerrero, whose full name is Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, calling him “the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth.”
The strike, which Trump said was “coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela,” was confirmed by Venezuelan authorities as a “joint operation.” US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the attack took place earlier this week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela’s Bolívar state. Venezuela’s communication ministry later described it as a “combined operation” targeting organised crime.
“US military kills Venezuelan gang leader Niño Guerrero in air strike coordinated with Venezuelan authorities.”
Trump framed the action as retribution for crimes allegedly committed by immigrants in the US, saying Joe Biden had opened the border to “millions of illegal Criminals” who “raped, maimed, and murdered American Citizens.” He specifically named 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray and 22-year-old Laken Riley among victims. The president has designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organisation, accusing it of “irregular warfare” against the US.
Under Guerrero’s leadership, the gang – originally a prison outfit – transformed into what the US state department called a “transnational criminal organisation,” expanding into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile and diversifying from extorting migrants into sex-trafficking, contract killing and kidnapping. It now has almost 10,000 members.
Guerrero spent years in and out of prison. In 2012 he escaped by bribing a guard, was rearrested in 2013, and upon return turned the Tocorón Prison in Aragua state into a leisure complex with a zoo, restaurants, nightclub, betting shop and swimming pool. In September 2023, then-president Nicolás Maduro sent 11,000 soldiers to storm the jail – but Guerrero escaped again.
In January, US forces seized Maduro from his compound to face criminal charges in New York, where the indictment named Guerrero Flores as a co-conspirator. Since then, Washington has tightened ties with Maduro’s successor Delcy Rodríguez, lifting sanctions and collaborating on oil extraction.
As Trump announced the strike, he also claimed a peace agreement to end the ongoing war with Iran would be signed “today” – though Tehran appeared to refute that. A tenuous ceasefire between the US and Iran has been in place since April 7.