The leader of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, Niño Guerrero, a fugitive from justice, was killed in a U.S. operation in Venezuela announced on Friday. He built his power in a Venezuelan prison, from where he expanded his influence to several countries.
Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias Niño Guerrero, died at age 42 in southern Venezuela, President Donald Trump and Venezuelan authorities reported.
Born in the city of Maracay, about 100 kilometers from Caracas, he was just a teenager, not yet finished high school, when his criminal activities began. By 2010, he had already committed robberies, murders, and kidnappings. He was then imprisoned in Tocorón prison, in Aragua state, from which he escaped, but was recaptured two years later.
From then on, he began building the Tren de Aragua, which would become one of the most powerful criminal groups in Latin America. In 2025, the Trump administration declared it a “terrorist organization.”
He was “a man with great criminal intelligence,” Luis Izquiel, a lawyer and professor of criminology at the Central University of Venezuela, explained to AFP.
The academic attributed Guerrero’s leadership “not so much to his ferocity or his inhumanity in his criminal actions, but because he was an individual with a criminal mind who managed to expand the reach of the Tren de Aragua and strengthen it.”
Swimming pool, zoo, and nightclub
In Tocorón prison, where he built a luxurious base of operations, Niño Guerrero became a “pran,” an acronym for “peso rematado, asesino natal” (literally, “heavyweight, born killer”) that criminals use to describe a gang leader, Izquiel noted.
He lived in a two-story house inside the prison where he received all kinds of visitors. It had a swimming pool, a baseball field, a nightclub, restaurants, and even a zoo, as documented by Ronna Rísquez, author of the book *El Tren Aragua: la banda que révolución el crimen organizado en América Latina* (The Aragua Train: The Gang That Revolutionized Organized Crime in Latin America).
Guerrero imposed his own law inside and outside of prison, controlled weapons and money, and is attributed with atrocious crimes in several countries, including Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
He escaped from Tocorón prison in 2023, when the Venezuelan government carried out several operations to eliminate the “pranes” (prison gang leaders), especially in that prison.
In 2025, he was indicted by a New York court along with 69 other alleged members of the Aragua Train for ordering, directing, and facilitating acts of terrorism and violence in the United States.
Washington offered a reward of five million dollars for any information leading to his capture.
