In a late Friday announcement from Washington D.C., former U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that American military forces have conducted a lethal targeted strike that eliminated the top leader of Tren de Aragua (TdA), a violent transnational criminal organization originally formed in Venezuela.
Trump shared the news via his own social media platform Truth Social, stating that at his direct order, the U.S. Southern Command carried out a rapid, deadly kinetic operation that successfully killed Nino Guerrero — the alias of Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores. The operation, Trump added, was closely coordinated with allied interim leadership in Venezuela, which has held power since the U.S. removed former president Nicolas Maduro from office in January. He specifically referenced interim leader Delcy Rodriguez’s administration as the collaborating partner in the strike.
Following the operation, Trump emphasized that Tren de Aragua terrorists will no longer be able to find a protected safe haven anywhere, whether within Venezuela or across the globe. He did not release additional details about the exact location where the strike was carried out.
Attached to Trump’s social media post was a 10-second surveillance video captured from an aerial perspective. The footage shows a low-rise building set amid dense greenery, followed by a massive explosion that billows a large plume of smoke into the air. No individual figures are clearly identifiable in the released clip.
Tren de Aragua, which under Guerrero’s leadership expanded its operations beyond Venezuela to establish criminal networks in Colombia, Peru, and Chile, has already been formally designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Months before the strike, in December, federal prosecutors in New York unveiled a multi-count indictment against Guerrero, charging him with racketeering, drug trafficking, and illegal firearms offenses.
At the time of the indictment’s announcement, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton described Guerrero as the mastermind behind TdA’s dramatic transformation from a small prison gang operating inside Venezuelan correctional facilities to a powerful transnational criminal enterprise. Clayton noted that under Guerrero’s direction, the gang carried out thousands of brutal acts of violence, extortion, and drug trafficking across North America, South America, and Europe. Prior to the strike, the U.S. State Department had issued a $5 million reward for any information that would lead to Guerrero’s arrest or conviction.