Trump says US military strike killed leader of Tren de Aragua gang with help from Venezuela
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that a “swift and lethally kinetic” U.S. strike killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he called the organization’s “notorious leader.” Train in Aragua gang.
Train in Aragua Labeled a terrorist organization by the United States. Guerrero Flores has been charged in New York federal court with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including supporting terrorists in crimes spanning more than a decade, authorities announced in December.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reported on X that the attack occurred earlier in the week at the Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said at the time that the gang was responsible for numerous acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe. Trump nominated Clayton to be director of national intelligence on Thursday.
The US State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Guerrero Flores.
In his post on the social media site, Trump wrote: “Train de Aragua terrorists no longer have a safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else, and under my leadership, we will find these brutal murderers and drug lords anytime, anywhere and send them to the depths of hell where they belong.” Trump’s post referred to Guerrero Flores by the pseudonym “Niño Guerrero.”
The post also included unsealed video from above of a small building whose green roof was blown off.
“The operation underscores the shared determination of the United States and Venezuela to wage the fight against narco-terrorists and not offer them any safe haven in our hemisphere,” Hegseth said.
Venezuela’s communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the operation.
Trump has taken a series of extraordinary actions against the gang, including a series of attacks on small boats that his administration accuses of smuggling drugs into America. At least 207 people have been killed in U.S. military boat attacks in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea since the Trump administration began targeting what it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
Trump and administration officials have repeatedly accused Tren de Aragua of being at the root of the violence and illegal drug trade that has plagued some U.S. cities. The president spent months repeating the claim: contradicts a declassified US intelligence assessment – That Tren de Aragua operates under the control of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The US removed Maduro from Venezuela in January to face US drug charges.
Tren de Aragua emerged more than a decade ago in an illegal prison for notorious criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as millions of Venezuelans migrate to other Latin American countries or the United States in search of better living conditions.
Guerrero Flores returned to prison in Aragua for murder and other convictions in 2013, when the Venezuelan crisis began as corruption, mismanagement and a collapse in crude oil prices devastated the oil-dependent economy. Guerrero Flores and several other prisoners saw the government’s neglect of prisons as a profitable opportunity.
They assumed control and administration of the prison and established a system that controlled the entire prison population through force and extortion. Shift, they transformed the facility It has turned into a kind of city with a zoo, baseball field, casino and restaurants. Guerrero Flores had his own luxury suite.
The size of the gang is unclear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being in the background. Wave of violence continues in the region. Yet unlike other criminal organizations in Colombia, Central America and Brazil, Tren de Aragua is not involved in large-scale cocaine trafficking across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that tracks crime in Latin America.
Gang leaders in Venezuela have long been known to be involved in various illegal activities, including gold mining.
Trump campaigned for a second term promising to fight immigration and crime. Although polls show that his positive ratings have fallen due to the way he manages the economy, Immigration remains Trump’s strongest issue According to AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
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Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed.
