The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Saturday the death of Héctor Guerrero Flores, known as 'Niño Guerrero' and considered the top leader of the powerful Venezuelan criminal gang 'Tren de Aragua', within the framework of a military operation coordinated between the US Southern Command and the Venezuelan Armed Forces.
"Under my orders, the United States Southern Command carried out 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 the planet," clarified the White House tenant.
The Tren de Aragua is currently classified as the most influential criminal organization in Venezuela, with a presence in other Latin American countries and even activity detected on US territory. The anti-drug operation promoted by Washington in Caribbean waters revolves around this group and has been questioned for its violent actions against alleged drug speedboats, which have already resulted in 200 deaths and could constitute, according to NGOs, extrajudicial executions.
The death of Guerrero Flores comes almost a year after Washington included Tren de Aragua on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list in July 2025, at which time a reward of over four million euros was also offered for information leading to his capture.
"At the beginning of my term, I fulfilled my promise to designate Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, deport thousands of evil criminals, and declare war on the cartels, which have long been waging war against our citizens, while weak leaders left the United States defenseless and on the defensive," he declared.
Without going into operational details, the president stressed that the operation "has avenged" the victims of the criminal group and expressed his recognition of the coordination with the Caracas authorities, emphasizing that both governments are "collaborating very well."
In parallel, he lashed out at former President Joe Biden, whom he holds responsible for "opening the southern border" of the country "to millions of illegal criminals," which would have allowed Tren de Aragua to "rape, mutilate, and murder American citizens with total impunity."
Shortly after Trump's message, Venezuela's Ministry of Information ratified this "combined operation between security agencies of Venezuela and the United States in the southeast of Bolívar state."
"During the development of the operation, there were clashes with members of these criminal structures, in which Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias 'Niño Guerrero', was neutralized," it adds.
According to the Ministry, the operation had "specialized technological support and was developed through mechanisms of cooperation and exchange of intelligence information between the authorities of both countries," in an action that has allowed the elimination of one of the main targets of the Trump Administration's war on drugs.
The previous Government, presided over by Biden, had already defined this group as a transnational criminal organization, but the current Executive, under the command of Trump, has toughened the strategy by granting it the category of terrorist organization.
Origin and expansion of the Tren de Aragua
The gang's beginnings date back two decades, coinciding with the construction of the stretch of the Venezuela Railway between the states of Aragua and Carabobo. The extortionist activity of certain union members involved in the works led to systemic abuses and a criminal structure that was already operating autonomously when the railway project concluded in 2011, according to National Police reports.
Identified and eliminated
Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores assumed control of the Tren de Aragua from the Aragua Penitentiary Center, in Torocón, which became a kind of lawless city from which he could continue to direct the group's operations with hardly any obstacles.
The Tren de Aragua gradually extended to other regions of Venezuela through agreements with smaller gangs and diversified its criminal catalog, incorporating extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, migrant smuggling, contraband, illegal mining, robbery, and drug trafficking, initially on a small scale, into its activities.
The head of the organization, imprisoned since 2013, managed to escape from the Torocón prison in September 2023, shortly before authorities launched an operation to regain control of the penitentiary. Since then, his whereabouts were unknown, while the United States offered a reward of up to 5 million dollars (4.3 million euros) for information leading to his arrest or conviction.