WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that a U.S. military strike had killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he called “the infamous leader” of the Tren de Aragua gang, describing the operation as a “swift and lethal kinetic” action.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike occurred earlier in the week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela. Hegseth said the operation “underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere.”
Tren de Aragua has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Guerrero Flores was charged in December in a New York federal court with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including lending support to terrorists, in a scheme that authorities said stretched more than a decade. U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said at the time that the gang was responsible for “countless acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe.” Trump nominated Clayton on Thursday to be director of national intelligence.
The U.S. State Department had offered rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to Guerrero Flores’ arrest.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump wrote, “Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else and, under my leadership, we will find these vicious murderers and drug lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong.” Trump’s post referred to Guerrero Flores by his alias, “Niño Guerrero,” and included unclassified video of a small building with a green roof exploding.
Venezuela’s ministry of communications did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has taken a series of actions targeting Tren de Aragua, including strikes on small boats his administration has accused of smuggling drugs to the United States. At least 207 people have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean since the Trump administration began targeting what it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September. The administration has said the strikes are part of a broader campaign against the gang.
Trump and administration officials have blamed Tren de Aragua for violence and drug dealing affecting some U.S. cities. Trump spent months repeating the claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua had operated under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control. The United States removed Maduro from Venezuela in January to face U.S. drug charges.
Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at a prison in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. Guerrero Flores returned to the prison for murder and other convictions in 2013, when Venezuela’s economic crisis began deepening. Guerrero Flores and other inmates assumed control of the prison, establishing a system that controlled the inmate population through force and extortion, and transforming the facility into a complex that included a zoo, a baseball field, a casino and restaurants, according to reporting at the time.
The size of the gang remains unclear. Countries with large Venezuelan migrant populations, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of violence. However, unlike other criminal organizations in the region, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that tracks crime across Latin America.