Who was Niño Guerrero, leader of the Tren de Aragua operating in Brazil

Shortly after 9pm on Friday (12) local time, US President Donald Trump made an unusual announcement on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump said the U.S. and Venezuela had collaborated to kill Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, also known as "Niño Guerrero" and identified as the top leader of the notorious Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which the U.S. designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization at the beginning of Trump's second term.

The attack on Guerrero Flores was "swift and lethal," Trump said, adding that under his leadership, the US will "find these ruthless killers and drug lords anytime, anywhere and send them to the depths of hell where they belong."

In his post, Trump included a 10-second video of the alleged assassination, showing an aerial view of a building with a galvanized metal roof being destroyed by an explosion.

The government of Venezuela's acting vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, said in a separate statement that the joint operation was carried out "in the southeast of the state of Bolívar" in Venezuela, adding that the US and Venezuela had exchanged both intelligence information and specialized technical support.

Until the joint attack was announced on Friday, Guerrero Flores' whereabouts were unknown. The criminal leader, who, according to authorities, helped found the Tren de Aragua, had been on the run for years, with a criminal record that spanned decades.

Trump described Guerrero Flores as "infamous" in his announcement, but few Americans probably know anything about him.

Anyone who is curious would find little information in government records and statements. The State Department's wanted page for Guerrero Flores has only a grainy black-and-white photo, with his height and weight listed as "unknown."

So who was "Niño Guerrero"?

Direct from Aragua
Although Guerrero Flores' State Department biography is brief, it does include his full name and date of birth, although, interestingly, this differs from the date of birth recorded in Venezuelan court documents.

Both documents state that Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores was born in the city of Maracay, capital of the Venezuelan state of Aragua, in 1983.

According to a 2018 Venezuelan Supreme Court ruling, Guerrero Flores' criminal history began in 2005, when he was arrested for the murder of an officer. Years later, in September 2012, he escaped from a notorious prison in Tocorón, Aragua, before being recaptured in 2013.

It was after its recapture, sometime between 2013 and 2015, that the Tren de Aragua began to take on its current form.

The group gradually accumulated more power and territory within the Tocorón prison, and the Tren de Aragua began to ally with other criminal gangs to expand its influence. He ended up controlling the San Vicente neighborhood in Guerrero Flores' hometown of Maracay, according to think tank InSight Crime and reports from the Venezuelan Violence Observatory.

On December 15, 2016, a court in the state of Aragua sentenced Guerrero Flores to 17 years and two months in prison for twelve crimes, including intentional homicide, escape from custody, concealment of a weapon of war, drug trafficking and criminal association.

However, the control of the Tren de Aragua within the Tocorón prison was so absolute, with swimming pools and restaurants built by the prisoners themselves within the prison walls, that keeping Guerrero Flores incarcerated there was as effective as letting him free.

It was only when the Venezuelan government took full control of the facility in October 2023 that they discovered he was missing. He had become a fugitive and remained so until his death.

The US State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture or conviction.

In December 2025, the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York charged Guerrero Flores with ordering, directing, and facilitating acts of terrorism within the United States.

From prison gang to foreign terrorist organization
With Guerrero Flores at the helm, the Tren de Aragua not only expanded its presence in Venezuela, but also reached other countries in the region and reportedly even crossed the Atlantic.

According to InSight Crime, the gang maintains a presence in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Meanwhile, Transparencia Venezuela, the Venezuelan arm of the non-governmental organization Transparency International, claims that the criminal group also operates in Brazil and Costa Rica.

Similarly, Mexican authorities reported arrests of alleged leaders and people linked to the Tren de Aragua. In 2023, a CNN investigation documented its presence in the United States.

In March 2024, Guerrero Flores' brother, Gerso, was arrested in Barcelona, Spain, and extradited to Venezuela a few months later. Just over a year later, Spanish police arrested 13 individuals who they described as the first known Tren de Aragua cell dismantled in the country.

In July 2024, then US President Joe Biden designated Tren de Aragua as a major transnational criminal organization. But at the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump went further, signing an executive order that classified the gang as a foreign terrorist organization. Soon after, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina followed suit.

The Tren de Aragua and other Latin American gangs are at the center of the Trump administration's first wave of deportations. Since the beginning of his second term, the president and his allies have argued, in and out of court, that the presence of alleged gang members inside the United States is part of a broader "invasion" into the country from its southern border.

The US government used this argument to deport hundreds of people in March 2025, after Trump invoked the Enemy Alien Act.

A few months later, in September, the US Department of Defense began pursuing alleged drug trafficking vessels operating in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, some of which authorities said were linked to the Venezuelan gang.

More than 200 people died in US attacks on these vessels. The Trump administration has not presented public evidence of the presence of narcotics on the attacked ships, nor of their links to drug cartels.

Source: CNN