The U.S. Executed the Tren de Aragua Boss in Venezuela. The New Caracas Government Helped.

President Trump announced on June 12, 2026 that a U.S. military strike killed Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, 43 — known as “Niño Guerrero,” “The Unspeakable,” and “The Big Eyebrow” — the founding boss of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua, in a lethal strike on a TdA compound in southeastern Venezuela earlier in the week. Independent confirmation of the death, beyond U.S. and Venezuelan government statements, was not available at publication.

What makes the operation diplomatically remarkable is who helped: Venezuela’s own security services, now under the post-Maduro government of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. Venezuela’s communications ministry confirmed a “combined operation” in Bolívar state, involving intelligence sharing and specialized technical support. The CIA also provided intelligence for the operation, according to a senior U.S. administration official.

Guerrero Flores was indicted in December 2025 by the Southern District of New York on racketeering, material support for terrorism, cocaine importation, and weapons charges. The State Department had offered up to $5 million for information leading to his capture. He was never captured. He was killed.

• June 12, 2026 — date Trump announced the killing on Truth Social, saying U.S. Southern Command 'delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike' · Source: Al Jazeera; Fox News
• Bolívar state — southeastern Venezuela — location of the Tren de Aragua compound where the strike was carried out · Source: Venezuela communications ministry; CBS News
• $5 million — State Department reward offered for information leading to Guerrero Flores' arrest — never claimed. He was killed instead · Source: State Dept; SDNY
• Feb. 20, 2025 — date Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) signed the Federal Register designation making Tren de Aragua a Foreign Terrorist Organization · Source: Federal Register FR Doc. 2025-02873
• 30+ — Tren de Aragua members charged alongside Guerrero Flores in the December 2025 SDNY indictment · Source: Hoodline / SDNY

Trump posted to Truth Social late on the evening of June 12: “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.” He added the operation was “coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.” The post included video that appeared to show a projectile striking a building and igniting a large explosion.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (R) confirmed on X that the strike had been carried out “earlier this week” on the Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela, and described it as a sign of a “shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to deny narco-terrorists any safe haven in the hemisphere.” U.S. Southern Command’s commanding general, General Francis Donovan, also confirmed the operation.

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The involvement of Venezuelan security services in a U.S. lethal strike inside Venezuela would have been unthinkable a year ago, when Nicolás Maduro still ran the country. Maduro himself was removed from power in a U.S.-led nighttime raid in January 2026 and flown to New York, where federal prosecutors have accused him of conspiring to traffic cocaine through Tren de Aragua. Venezuela has since been governed by his former deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, and the Trump administration has pursued security cooperation with her government, lifting sanctions and opening intelligence-sharing channels.

Venezuela’s communications ministry confirmed the operation in a formal statement, saying Guerrero Flores died during “clashes with members of criminal groups” in Bolívar state, in a “combined operation between Venezuelan and United States security agencies” involving “intelligence sharing and specialized technical support.” A senior U.S. administration official told reporters the CIA provided the intelligence that made the strike possible. Neither country named which specific Venezuelan security services were involved.

“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero.”

President Donald J. Trump · Truth Social · June 12, 2026

Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores was born in 1983 in Maracay, in Venezuela’s Aragua state — the same state that gave the gang its name. His criminal record began around 2000 with petty crimes and robberies. By 2005 he had attacked a police station, killing Corporal Oswaldo González. He was captured in 2010 trafficking stolen goods and drugs, escaped prison in 2012, and was recaptured a year later. In February 2018 he was sentenced to 17 years for homicide, drug trafficking, identity theft, and illegal weapons possession — but that sentence proved largely theoretical.

From inside Tocorón Prison, Guerrero Flores ran TdA’s operations and, leveraging Venezuela’s near-total collapse of prison authority, transformed the facility into what investigators described as a self-governing criminal compound — complete with a swimming pool, nightclub, zoo, restaurants, a baseball stadium, and pig and chicken farms. He escaped for the final time in 2023 when authorities tried to retake control of Tocorón. He was never recaptured.

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In December 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment charging Guerrero Flores with racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices. More than 30 TdA members were charged alongside him. The State Department simultaneously announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. He was, at that point, already a fugitive, having escaped the Aragua Penitentiary Center in 2023.

On February 20, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R-FL) signed the Federal Register notice designating Tren de Aragua — along with MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, and five other organizations — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The designation (FR Doc. 2025-02873) means that knowingly providing material support or resources to TdA is a federal crime, and that TdA members are subject to immigration bars, asset freezes, and prosecution under counterterrorism statutes. Guerrero Flores was the first TdA leader prosecuted under those elevated charges.

The strike represents a pivot in U.S.-Venezuela relations that would have been considered impossible during the Maduro years. Venezuela under Maduro was accused by U.S. prosecutors of harboring and enabling TdA as a tool of state-sponsored narco-terrorism; Maduro himself was indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism charges in the Southern District of New York. The January 2026 raid that removed Maduro from power and the subsequent cooperation with the Rodríguez government has, at least as of this operation, realigned Caracas as a counternarcotics partner rather than an adversary.

Independent verification of Guerrero Flores’ death beyond U.S. and Venezuelan government statements has not yet been confirmed by third-party observers as of publication. Both governments have strong political incentives to confirm the killing. The U.S. government has previously released video of strikes on TdA drug vessels in the Caribbean — some of which human-rights groups and legal scholars have described as extrajudicial killings under international law, noting that earlier maritime strikes in 2025 killed people aboard boats, including individuals whose families claimed were fishermen. This strike, in contrast, was carried out inside Venezuelan territory with the host government’s stated participation.

Guerrero Flores ran Tren de Aragua for more than a decade. The gang grew from a Maracay prison racket into a transnational network with documented operations in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Brazil, the United States, and Spain. In the United States, TdA has been linked to violent crimes in Texas, New York, Colorado, Florida, and elsewhere. Removing a single leader rarely destroys an organization of this complexity — but the SDNY prosecution framework, the FTO designation, and now the killing of the founding boss represent the most aggressive U.S. posture against TdA since the gang first appeared on federal law enforcement radar.

Trump’s closing post on Truth Social: “Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else.” Whether the organization’s leadership structure can survive the loss of its founder — or whether a successor emerges from its decentralized network — is a question law enforcement will be tracking in the months ahead. We will update this page as additional official confirmation and independent verification become available.

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