President Donald Trump has said US forces have killed an “infamous leader” of Tren De Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the administration has branded a global “terrorist” organisation and drug-smuggling cartel.
“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social website late on Friday, referring to gang leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores.
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Trump added that the operation was in collaboration with Venezuela.
In a statement, Venezuela’s government confirmed it participated in the operation in the southeastern state of Bolivar, stating that Flores was killed during “clashes with members of criminal groups”.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X, said the strike had occurred earlier in the week, targeting a Tren de Aragua site in Venezuela.
“The operation underscores the shared US and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere,” he posted.
Tren de Aragua originated from a notorious prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, from where it controlled a vast drug trafficking and criminal network.
The group has some 7,000 members spread across South America and the US. It was labelled a terrorist organisation by the US in February 2025, early on in Trump’s administration.
Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago have also labelled it a terror group.
Gang leader Flores, 42, escaped from the Tocoron prison in Venezuela along with other gang leaders just before a police raid in 2023.
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He was charged in absentia in a New York court in December for racketeering conspiracy, lending support to terrorists and other crimes.
Washington has claimed a series of strikes on small boats in the Pacific and Caribbean were targeting the gang. At least 207 people have been killed. Family members of some of those killed said they were fishermen.
The strikes are widely considered illegal under both US and international law and have been described as extrajudicial killings by legal scholars and rights groups.
The Trump administration has also cited connections to the gang to justify deporting some immigrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Trump has said without evidence that the group operated under Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s protection.
In January, US troops kidnapped Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores in a raid on their home in Caracas. Maduro now faces federal drug charges.
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