The video, taken from the air, shows a modest green-roofed building in a forest clearing in southeastern Venezuela. As in the dozens of videos Donald Trump has shared over the last months of supposed narco-boats being blasted apart in the Caribbean Sea, the house disintegrates after the missile hits. A column of black smoke rises over the trees, visible from miles away. Ten seconds is all it took to kill Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, 42, aka El Niño Guerrero, the leader of Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s most powerful criminal group that operated with official complicity for years.
That operation was announced on Friday night, but in Venezuela, no one had talked of anything else for three days. On Tuesday, Venezuelan security forces carried out an opaque operation related to the gold mines in the state of Bolívar, an area controlled by Tren de Aragua. Videos recorded by local residents showed what were apparently Venezuelan helicopters flying over the area, launching attacks and dropping off dozens of agents. Clips also showed hundreds of men fleeing the mines, enormous scars in the jungle that different criminal factions have made their primary source of income.
The government gave no initial explanation, and in that silence grew a theory that many still believe: that behind the operation were Washington interests in Venezuelan gold.
Though the police-military operation continues to be mysterious, official sources in Caracas say they were driven by a single objective: to neutralize Guerrero, and that it was the result of a months-long search. A chase that began, they say, even before Washington bombed Caracas on January 3 to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
Sources close to the operation say Venezuelan officials spent nine months searching for Niño Guerrero. They knew he had taken refuge in neighboring Colombia and settled in the southern region of the country, attempting to take control of the million-dollar mining operation in the borderlands with Brazil and Guyana. It was in Guyana, a country with which Venezuela has land disputes, where he had his hideaway, though he crossed the border whenever he needed to.
Niño Guerrero had spent 10 days in that shack in the clearing when on Friday morning, Venezuelan officials were able to prove it was him. “They saw him near the house and identified him by a tattoo on his leg,” explains a source familiar with the details of the operation. Trump jumped ahead of Caracas on Friday night, crediting the assassination to a joint operation with “our friends in Venezuela”. U.S. Southern Command, Trump wrote on Truth Social, had killed the “infamous leader” of Tren de Aragua in a “swift and lethal kinetic strike.”
But Trump left one key question unanswered: had U.S. troops entered Venezuelan territory? If that were true, Washington’s control of Venezuela since Maduro’s capture had hit a new level.
The Washington Post cites “a person close to the attack” who said the missile was launched by the U.S. Special Operations Command, and that the CIA worked with Venezuelan forces on the ground. But Caracas sources familiar with the operation swore in a conversation with EL PAÍS that “U.S. military presence” was “never” present in Venezuelan territory for the operation. Collaboration with the United States, they suggest, was largely technological, but the land operation “was completely directed and carried out” by Venezuela. When asked who launched the missile, and what exactly the weapon had been, they did not respond.
In an announcement made two hours after Trump’s, Delcy Rodríguez’s administration did not deny that the operation had been collaborative. Her statement was an exercise in balance, and did not confirm that foreign troops had killed the ringleader, instead speaking of a “combined operation” and “face-offs” with criminals in which Guerrero Flores was “neutralized.” According to the Chavista leader, the operation featured “specialized technological support” and intelligence exchanged between the two countries.
Trump made Tren de Aragua his public enemy no. 1 through the argument that the group was Maduro’s armed force in U.S. territory. But there are doubts as to whether it is the vertical, omnipotent organization described by Washington. According to Andrés Antillano, a researcher from the Central University of Venezuela, Tren de Aragua is more like a brand, with its core in the state of Aragua and dozens of groups in different countries that use the name to instill fear, but do not receive orders from any central command.
Niño Guerrero got an early start in the world of crime, and by the age of 17, was trafficking drugs in Maracay and killing police officers. His first capture in 2010 took place in front of a liquor store, and he was found to be in possession of a gun, ammunition and stolen watches. While incarcerated, he extorted other prisoners and nearby businesses and when the group expanded into Colombia, Peru, Chile and the United States, he replicated that model of blackmailing business owners in exchange for security. He would later become involved in the trafficking of Venezuelan migrants, who proved to be the easiest and most numerous source of victims.
In 2012, he escaped the Tocorón prison in the state of Aragua by paying off guards with $400. He was captured again a year later, at which point he finished establishing his empire from behind bars. When officials took control of the prison in September 2023 and demolished the office and theme park he had constructed in the penitentiary — including a zoo, nightclub and baseball stadium — Niño Guerrero disappeared.
After a period outside the country, he wound up hiding out somewhere between Guyana and southern Venezuela, where the underworld controls illegal gold mining with the help of local authorities. According to an investigation by InSight Crime, during the 2024 electoral campaign, Maduro propaganda was distributed among the mines, and miners were coerced to voting for the candidate.
Venezuelan officials say the status of the criminal organization has changed in recent months and that for some time, attempts have been made to rid the area of criminals because with them in charge, it is impossible to attract investment. “Everything that happened before, when there were criminal bosses dominating everything, is no longer really like that,” they say. The same sources explain that for over a year, they have been trying to take a census of the near 200,000 miners who work in the area to turn them into workers in the formal economy of companies that will begin operations in the area.
Such is the bet being made by the new Venezuela: that without Niño Guerrero and other henchmen, the Orinoco Mining Arc will at last be worth its true value. Washington is making the same wager.
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