President Donald Trump said Friday that a U.S. military strike killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the leader of the Venezuela-based gang Tren de Aragua.
Trump wrote, "At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero," and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike occurred earlier in the week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela.
Venezuela's communications ministry said Guerrero Flores was killed in a "combined operation" between U.S. forces and Venezuelan security services targeting organized crime in Bolívar state.
Guerrero Flores was indicted late last year in New York federal court on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and a cocaine conspiracy, and the State Department had offered up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
Trump's social media post included video that showed a small green-roofed building exploding, and he wrote, "Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else," adding the U.S. would "send them to the depths of hell where they belong."
Guerrero Flores and other inmates assumed control of Tocorón Prison in Aragua state, transforming the facility into a complex that included a zoo, baseball field, casino and restaurants, and Guerrero Flores had his own lavish suite.
The administration has carried out strikes on small boats it said were smuggling drugs, and at least 207 people have been killed in those boat strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea since the campaign began in early September.
The operation follows the U.S. removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January to face U.S. drug charges in New York, and prosecutors had listed Guerrero Flores as a co-conspirator in related indictments.
Critics and some legal experts have said the military has not provided evidence that the attacked boats were carrying drugs and have questioned whether the strikes could violate international law.