The US military has killed a leader in the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, with the help of Venezuela, Donald Trump announced on Friday.
“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, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“This action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.”
Trump’s post also included a video appearing to show the strike.
A screengrab from Donald Trump’s Truth Social account on Friday. Photograph: @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
Venezuela confirmed the death of the gang’s leader during the “joint operation”.
“There were clashes with members of these criminal structures, in which Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias ‘Nino Guerrero’, was neutralized,” the ministry of communications said in a statement.
Tren de Aragua has been labeled a terrorist organization by the US. Guerrero Flores was charged in a New York federal court with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including lending support to terrorists in crimes that stretched more than a decade, authorities announced in December.
The US state department had offered rewards of up to $5m for information leading to Guerrero Flores’s arrest.
US attorney Jay Clayton said at the time that the gang was responsible for countless acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe. Trump nominated Clayton on Thursday to be director of national intelligence.
Trump has taken a series of extraordinary actions against the gang, including strikes on small boats his administration has accused of smuggling drugs to America.
The Trump administration has claimed Tren de Aragua “invaded” the United States and is to blame for violence and illicit drugs in US cities, sweeping statements that have drawn criticism from some in the Venezuelan diaspora.
The president spent months repeating the claim – contradicted by a declassified US intelligence assessment – that Tren de Aragua had operated under Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s control. The US whisked Maduro out of Venezuela to face US drug charges in January.
Trump also used the Friday announcement to impugn his predecessor.
“Before I returned to office, Joe Biden opened our Southern Border to millions of Illegal Criminals, and allowed this foreign army to rape, maim, and murder American Citizens with total impunity,” he wrote.
He made reference to Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Reilly, two American citizens who were killed in separate attacks by undocumented immigrants. Their cases became a political lightning rod for conservatives, who laid blame on Democratic leadership’s border policies.
Associated Press contributed to this report
