In the late evening on June 12, President Trump posted on Truth Social that “the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute [Héctor ‘El Niño’] Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua,” the transnational street gang from Venezuela. He did not identify the time nor location of the lethal airstrike, but included a video of a building being destroyed by a projectile. On June 13, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike took place “earlier this week.” A June 12 statement from Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez states that the airstrike was a “joint operation between Venezuelan and United States security agencies,” and implies that the airstrike took place in the country’s southeastern gold-mining region in Bolívar state. This region has been a stronghold of Tren de Aragua.
In 2024, the Biden administration offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Guerrero. Héctor Guerrero faced multiple criminal charges including homicide, drug trafficking, identity theft, money laundering, robbery, conspiracy to commit a crime, and illegal possession of weapons. According to the U.S. State Department, Tren de Aragua “has conducted kidnappings, extorted businesses, bribed public officials, authorized its members to attack and kill U.S. law enforcement, and assassinated a Venezuelan opposition figure.”
