Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua Leader Confirmed Dead
President Donald Trump broke the news Friday evening on Truth Social, announcing that US Southern Command had delivered what he described as "a swift and lethal kinetic strike" against the man widely known by his alias "Niño Guerrero" — meaning "warrior child" — inside a rural compound in Venezuela's southeastern Bolívar state.
Venezuela's Ministry of Communication and Information swiftly confirmed the operation, stating that clashes had erupted with gang members during the raid and that the mission was carried out with advanced technological support, intelligence sharing and cooperation mechanisms between the two countries.
"During the operation, clashes occurred with members of these criminal structures, resulting in the death of Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias 'Niño Guerrero,' the leader of a criminal organization," the ministry said in a statement.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed on X that US Southern Command struck a Tren de Aragua compound housing Guerrero Flores, with CIA intelligence underpinning the operation, according to a senior administration official. US Southern Command Commander Gen. Francis Donovan described the target as "a Tren de Aragua compound."
Trump, in his Truth Social post, framed the killing as retribution and a warning to criminal networks worldwide.
"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," Trump wrote. "This action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well. As a result, 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 drugs lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong."
From Prison Yard to Transnational Terror
Guerrero Flores, 43, built Tren de Aragua from the inside of a prison cell. Born in 1983 in Maracay, in Venezuela's Aragua state, he surfaced in police records in the early 2000s and was accused in 2005 of killing a police officer. Arrested in 2010 on charges including murder, drug trafficking and extortion, he escaped from prison in 2012, was recaptured the following year, and transferred to Tocoron Prison — where, rather than serving his sentence, he consolidated power and eventually became a "pran," the Venezuelan term for a dominant prison gang leader.
From behind bars, US prosecutors allege, he directed a sprawling criminal network across Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Brazil and Panama for more than a decade, building Tren de Aragua into a transnational organisation synonymous with human trafficking, drug smuggling, extortion and murder.
The US designated Tren de Aragua a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2025. In December of that year, a federal grand jury in New York indicted Guerrero Flores on charges of racketeering, directing acts of terrorism, drug importation and firearms offences. The US State Department had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture or conviction.
Until Friday's announcement, his whereabouts had remained unknown.
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