WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that a U.S. operation he described as “swift and lethal” killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he identified as the notorious leader of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The United States has designated Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization. Federal prosecutors in New York charged Guerrero Flores in December with racketeering conspiracy and other offenses, alleging he provided support to terrorism as part of criminal activity spanning more than a decade.
At the time, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the gang was behind widespread violence, extortion and drug trafficking across North America, South America and Europe. Trump on Thursday nominated Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence.
The State Department had previously offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Guerrero Flores’ arrest.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Tren de Aragua members “no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else” and vowed that his administration would continue pursuing “these vicious murderers and drug lords anytime, anyplace.”
The Pentagon did not provide additional details beyond Trump’s social media statement.
Trump has taken a series of extraordinary actions against the gang, including a series of strikes on small boats his administration has accused of smuggling drugs to America. At least 207 people have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
Trump and administration officials have consistently blamed Tren de Aragua for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some U.S. cities. The president spent months repeating the claim – contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment – that Tren de Aragua had operated under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control. The U.S. whisked Maduro out of Venezuela to face U.S. drug charges in January.
Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as millions of Venezuelans migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S. in search of better living conditions.
The size of the gang is unclear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in the region. Still, unlike other criminal organizations from Colombia, Central America and Brazil, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that tracks crime across Latin America.
In Venezuela, gang leaders have long been known to participate in various illegal activities, including gold mining.
Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed.
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