President Donald Trump announced Friday that the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based gang that's a key target of his immigration crackdown, was killed by the U.S. military in cooperation with the Venezuelan government.
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“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth,†Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The Venezuelan government said in a statement that the strike was a “joint operation between Venezuelan and United States security agencies in the southeastern BolÃvar state.â€
“During the operation, clashes occurred with members of these criminal groups, resulting in the neutralization of Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores — alias “Niño Guerrero†— the leader of a criminal organization,†it added.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that U.S. forces struck a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela to carry out the attack.
Tren de Aragua quickly became a target of Trump's immigration enforcement after he returned to office in 2025, putting the gang at the center of his deportation agenda. The State Department designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization in February 2025.
The U.S. charged Guerrero Flores in December with racketeering conspiracy and lending support to terrorists, along with other crimes, with the State Department offering $5 million in rewards for information that would help arrest or convict him.
Federal prosecutors called him “the mastermind of Tren de Aragua's evolution from a Venezuelan prison gang into a transnational terrorist organization.â€
In July of last year, he was sanctioned by the U.S. government, alongside five other alleged Tren de Aragua leaders and affiliates, over claims that they had engaged in numerous crimes, including illicit drug trade, human smuggling and trafficking and money laundering.
Trump on Friday called the U.S. strike a fulfillment of his campaign pledge on immigration.
“During my Campaign, I pledged to expel these monsters from our Country, and bring Justice to the families of those they slaughtered,†the president wrote Friday. “With this action, the United States Military has brought retribution for them, their families, and their loved ones.â€
Trump also touted the collaboration with Venezuelan forces on the strike, writing Friday that it “was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.â€
Hegseth emphasized the relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela in his own post Friday.
“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,†Hegseth wrote on X.
U.S. relations with Venezuela changed dramatically after the arrest and removal of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early January.
Maduro, who's in federal custody in New York, faces charges of narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of machine guns and destruction devices. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
As part of the Trump administration's campaign against “narcoterrorists,†the U.S. military has struck dozens of alleged drug boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea since September, killing at least 207 people without providing evidence of drug smuggling.
