Explosion following what U.S. President Donald Trump stated was a strike carried out by U.S. forces that killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, also called “Nino Guerrero,” the chief of Venezuelan jail gang Tren de Aragua, at an unidentified location, on this screengrab taken from a video launched on June 12, 2026. Photograph: Handout by way of Reuters.
President Donald Trump stated on Friday (June 12, 2026) {that a} “swift and deadly kinetic” U.S. strike had killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he known as “the notorious chief” of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Tren de Aragua has been labelled by the USA as a terrorist organisation. Guerrero Flores was charged in a New York federal court docket with racketeering conspiracy and different crimes, together with lending assist to terrorists in crimes that stretched greater than a decade, authorities introduced in December.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike occurred earlier within the week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela.
U.S. Lawyer Jay Clayton stated on the time that the gang is liable for numerous acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe. Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Clayton on Thursday (June 11, 2026) to be the director of nationwide intelligence.
The U.S. State Division had provided rewards of as much as $5 million for data resulting in Guerrero Flores’ arrest.
In a submit on his social media web site, Mr. Trump wrote, “Tren de Aragua terrorists now not have protected haven in Venezuela or anyplace else and, beneath my management, we’ll discover these vicious murderers and drug lords anytime, anyplace, and ship them to the depths of hell the place they belong.” Mr. Trump’s submit referred to Guerrero Flores by his alias, “Niño Guerrero.”
Mr. Hegseth stated, “The operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan dedication to take the struggle to narco-terrorists and deny them any protected haven in our hemisphere.”
Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the operation.
Mr. Trump has taken a collection of extraordinary actions towards the gang, together with a collection of strikes on small boats his administration has accused of smuggling medicine to America. At the very least 207 folks have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. army within the jap Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea for the reason that Trump administration started focusing on these it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
Mr. Trump and administration officers have persistently blamed Tren de Aragua for being on the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some U.S. cities. The President spent months repeating the declare — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence evaluation — that Tren de Aragua had operated beneath Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s management. The U.S. whisked Mr. Maduro out of Venezuela to face U.S. drug costs in January.
Tren de Aragua originated greater than a decade in the past at an infamously lawless jail with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent times as thousands and thousands of Venezuelans migrated to different Latin American international locations or the U.S. in the hunt for higher residing circumstances.
Guerrero Flores returned to the jail in Aragua for homicide and different convictions in 2013, when Venezuela’s disaster started as corruption, mismanagement and a drop in crude costs wrecked the oil-dependent financial system. Guerrero Flores and some different inmates noticed a worthwhile alternative as the federal government uncared for prisons.
They assumed management and administration of the jail, establishing a system that managed your complete inmate inhabitants by means of pressure and extortion. Over time, they reworked the power right into a form of metropolis that included a zoo, baseball area, on line casino and eating places. Guerrero Flores had his personal lavish suite.
The dimensions of the gang is unclear. International locations with giant populations of Venezuelan migrants, together with Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence within the area. Nonetheless, in contrast to different prison organizations from Colombia, Central America and Brazil, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine throughout worldwide borders, based on InSight Crime, a assume tank that tracks crime throughout Latin America.
In Venezuela, gang leaders have lengthy been recognized to take part in numerous unlawful actions, together with gold mining.
Mr. Trump campaigned for a second time period, promising to crack down on immigration and crime. Whereas polls present his favorability scores have sagged on his dealing with of the financial system, immigration stays Mr. Trump’s strongest challenge, based on the AP-NORC Middle for Public Affairs Analysis.
Printed – June 13, 2026 09:31 am IST