US Military Kills Tren de Aragua Gang Leader “Niño Guerrero” in Targeted Missile Strike

Trump and his administration has accused the group of engaging in “irregular warfare” against the US and declared it a foreign terrorist organisation.

Trump said the military action was “coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.” Venezuelan authorities confirmed their involvement in what they described as a joint operation.

Who Was “Niño Guerrerro”?

Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores has a police record dating back to the 2000s, accused of attacking and killing police officers. Guerrero spent years in and out of prison. In 2012, he escaped by bribing a guard and was then rearrested in 2013.

Upon his return, he transformed the Tocorón Prison in the northern Venezuelan state of Aragua into a leisure complex, complete with zoo, restaurants, nightclub, betting shop and swimming pool.

Tren de Aragua or tDA, was originally a prison gang that Niño Guerrero turned into a transnational criminal organisation, according to the US state department, which had offered a $5 million reward.

In September 2023, Maduro, then still president, sent 11,000 soldiers to storm and wrestle back control of the jail. Guerrero escaped again.

Under Guerrero’s leadership, Tren de Aragua expanded into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile and diversified from extorting migrants into sex-trafficking, contract killing and kidnapping.

In and out of prison, he was still able to expand the gang’s influence, seizing control of gold mines in Bolivar state, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast, and clandestine border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia, according to the US state department.

By most accounts, Tren de Aragua spread out of Venezuela when the country entered a humanitarian and economic emergency in 2014 that made crime less profitable, and now is believed to have nodes in eight other countries, including the US. The group, in part, operates by forming alliances and partnerships with local criminal organizations.

In Ecuador, for example, the gang is believed to work with groups loosely affiliated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, while in Colombia some have alleged that they have worked with members of the left-wing National Liberation Army guerrilla group, or ELN.

Under the Trump administration, US forces have launched dozens of strikes on boats they say are part of a large-scale operation to smuggle drugs into the US, including many that are claimed to be linked to Tren de Aragua.

More than 200 people have been killed in strikes since September. But the military has not provided evidence that the attacked boats were carrying drugs or drug smugglers, sparking criticism of the operation and questions around its legality.

Some legal experts have argued that the strikes could violate international law by targeting civilians without offering them due process.

The Trump administration has said the killings are lawful. In a statement to Congress last year, the White House said US President Donald Trump had “determined” that the US was in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and that crews of drug-running boats were “combatants.”