A joint strike by the United States and Venezuela killed a leader of the Tren de Aragua transnational gang, President Trump and officials in both countries said on Friday, dealing a blow to a syndicate the Trump administration has blamed for an influx of violent crime and illicit drugs.
The strike took place earlier this week alongside Venezuelan security forces, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said without providing a precise date. He said it targeted a compound housing Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, a founder of Tren de Aragua.
A statement from Venezuela’s communications ministry said the operation took place in Venezuela, in the southeast of the state of Bolívar. Both Mr. Hegseth and Venezuelan officials said that Mr. Guerrero Flores had been killed in the strike.
Mr. Guerrero Flores, 43, was better known by the alias Niño Guerrero, meaning “warrior child.” He was wanted in the United States on federal charges of directing acts of terrorism, alongside other charges.
Mr. Trump said on Truth Social, his online platform, that the U.S. military’s Southern Command had conducted the strike at his direction as part of his pledge to dismantle foreign gangs. His administration designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization last year.
Mr. Trump said the operation had been conducted with the Venezuelan government, which has become more cooperative with the United States since the United States captured the former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and helped install a more pliant replacement, Delcy Rodriguez.
Mr. Trump posted a video of a building exploding and invoked the names of crime victims in Georgia and Texas, calling the operation “retribution” for their families.
Mr. Trump has often railed against the gang, using it to push his deportation agenda and to justify his military strikes on vessels purportedly ferrying illegal drugs from Venezuela to the United States. In both those efforts, critics have questioned whether Tren de Aragua has truly played the dangerous role that Mr. Trump says it has.
Gen. Francis L. Donovan, who leads the U.S. Southern Command, thanked Venezuelan security forces in a social media post for their support in what he described as a joint operation.
The Venezuelan government said in a statement on Friday that a combined operation had targeted organized crime structures. The operation was based on the exchange of intelligence between the two countries, the statement said.
Tren de Aragua originated as a prison gang in Venezuela in the mid-2000s and has since expanded across Latin America and several U.S. cities. The organization is one of the most notorious in the region, focused on sex trafficking, human smuggling and drugs, drawing intense scrutiny from U.S. law enforcement.
The Biden administration in 2024 issued a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Mr. Guerrero Flores. He was charged last year in a New York federal court under the second Trump administration with racketeering, terrorism, drug importation and firearms offenses.
