{"id":734546,"date":"2026-06-13T16:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734546\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T16:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:52:12","slug":"trump-says-tren-de-aragua-gang-leader-killed-via-u-s-military-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734546\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says Tren de Aragua gang leader killed via U.S. military strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said U.S. forces carried out a strike that killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, also \u200cknown as Ni\u00f1o Guerrero, the leader of Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua.<\/p>\n

“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a \u200bswift and lethal kinetic strike to \u200bsuccessfully execute Nino Guerrero the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most \u200bbloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet,” Trump said in \u2060a post \u2060on Truth Social on \u200cFriday evening.<\/p>\n

“This action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.”<\/p>\n

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth \u200cposted on X<\/a> that the strike was conducted earlier this week and that Guerrero “was confirmed killed during the strike.”<\/p>\n

Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Targeted with sanctions<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has \u200crepeatedly targeted Guerrero and other leaders of the Tren de Aragua organization with sanctions over alleged involvement in criminal activities such as illicit drug smuggling, human \u200btrafficking and money laundering.<\/p>\n

The U.S. State Department has designated Tren de Aragua \u2060a foreign terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

Trump has claimed Tren de Aragua \u2060co-ordinated its U.S. activities with the Venezuelan government of \u2060President \u2060Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. The Trump \u200badministration has cited the alleged connection to justify deporting some \u200bimmigrants in \u2060the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.<\/p>\n

Tren de Aragua is known for being involved in human trafficking and \u2060controls routes taken by Venezuelans and other South American migrants heading south \u2060to \u2060relatively prosperous Chile and other \u200bdestinations in South America or Europe.<\/p>\n

The group has also been linked to \u200bextortion, kidnapping, money laundering, contract \u2060killings, smuggling and organized retail theft from Panama to Brazil and along the Andean corridor, Latin American police officials say.<\/p>\n

Guerrero escaped from the Tocoron prison in Venezuela along with other gang leaders just before a police raid in 2023. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-734546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}