June 11, 2026, in Caracas, Venezuela, people continue with their daily lives as the political shadow of deposed President Nicolás Maduro fades from the public consciousness.
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President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. military carried out an airstrike that killed Hector Rustenford Guerrero Flores, also known as Niño Guerrero, the leader of the Venezuelan prison organization Torren de Aragua.
“At my direction, U.S. Southern Command conducted a swift and deadly kinetic attack that successfully executed Nino Guerrero, the infamous leader of Torren de Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty terrorist organizations on the planet,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday night.
“This action is closely coordinated with our friends in Venezuela, and we are very cooperative.”
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike took place earlier this week and that Guerrero was “confirmed to have died during the strike.”
Venezuela’s intelligence ministry said there was a clash with members of the criminal group during the operation, and its leader, Guerrero, was neutralized.
The operation included professional technical assistance and was carried out through cooperation and intelligence sharing between authorities of both countries, the ministry said.
The Trump administration has repeatedly sanctioned Guerrero and other leaders of the Torren de Aragua organization for their alleged involvement in criminal activities such as drug smuggling, human trafficking and money laundering.
The State Department has designated Torren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization.
President Trump claimed that Torren de Aragua was coordinating U.S. activities with President Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan government. The Trump administration has cited the allegations to justify deporting some immigrants in the United States to high-security prisons in El Salvador.
Torren de Aragua is known to be involved in human trafficking, controlling the route south for Venezuelans and other South American migrants to relatively prosperous Chile and other destinations in South America and Europe.
Latin American law enforcement officials say the group is also involved in extortion, kidnapping, money laundering, contract killings, smuggling and organized retail theft from Panama to Brazil and along the Andean corridor.
Guerrero escaped from Venezuela’s Tocoron prison with other gang leaders shortly before a police raid in 2023.
