US Military Kills Tren de Aragua Gang Leader “Niño Guerrero” in Targeted Missile Strike

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The US military has killed the leader of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in an airstrike, President Donald Trump has announced.

"At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero," Trump wrote on social media.

Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, was recognized as the longtime leader of Tren de Aragua. The onetime prison gang became one of the most notorious criminal groups in Latin America and has been a target of the Trump administration.

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US Military Launches Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela, Arresting Nicolas Maduro on Narco Terrorism Charges

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U.S. forces struck at least 13 targets across Caracas during an operation aimed at capturing Venezuela’s leader. Delta Force helicopters were tracked landing near Maduro’s hideout.

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CIA Likely Behind December 18 and December 24 Land Strikes on Venezuelan Drug Targets

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A firsthand account of an explosion along the Venezuelan coast on December 18 is raising questions about who may have been responsible for the attack and whether it and a supposed fire at a nearby chemical plant were either of the drone strikes confirmed by Trump on December 26.

Two members of Venezuela’s Wayuu indigenous community in the area told NBC News that they witnessed an unexplained explosion on December 18 that destroyed a hut along the coast that possibly was used for storage.

The arid coastal strip in the northwest of Venezuela, known as Alta Guajira, is heavily controlled by the National Liberation Army or ELN, an armed guerilla group known for its history of drug trafficking that is also active in neighboring Colombia.

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Trump Pardons Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, Convicted of Cocaine Trafficking in 2024

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US President Donald Trump said Friday that he will be pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who in 2024 was convicted for drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

The President explained his decision on social media by posting that "according to many people that I greatly respect," Hernandez was "treated very harshly and unfairly."

In March of last year, Hernandez was convicted in U.S. court of conspiring to import cocaine into the US. He had served served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of roughly 10 million people. He had been arrested and eventually extradited in 2022 following the end of his second presidential term.

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Iran Planned to Assassinate Israel’s Ambassador to Mexico

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Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plotted to assassinate Israel's ambassador to Mexico, starting late last year, but the effort was contained and there is no current threat a U.S. official said on Friday.

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plot against the ambassador, Einat Kranz Neiger, had been active through the first half of this year. 

Israel says Mexico thwarted the attempt said to be part of Iran's revenge in the aftermath of the deadly 2024 Israeli bombing of Iranian embassy in Syria.

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Venezuela Claims 3.6 Tons of Cocaine Their Forces Seized Was Part of a DEA False Flag Operation

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Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela's Minister of the Interior reported the dismantling of a "false flag" operation meant to link the South American country with drug trafficking. The alleged perpetrators of this operation? A drug trafficker tied to the large cocaine shipment, and the DEA.

Cabello reported at a press conference that Venezuelan authorities carried out an operation in which they seized 3,680 kilograms of cocaine traveling aboard a boat with four crew members, who were all arrested.

"That drug boat was a DEA false flag operation to accuse Venezuela. Four detainees with Venezuelan IDs were going to be released; they (the detainees) are reporting that," Cabello emphasized.

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US Military Conducts First Targeted Lethal Strike on Drug Smuggling Vessel in Caribbean Sea

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The United States “conducted a lethal strike” against an alleged “drug vessel” coming from Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday. 11 smugglers were reportedly killed in the strike, all alleged to be Tren de Aragua (TdA) members.

“As @potus just announced moments ago, today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Carribean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Rubio said in a post on X after President Donald Trump referenced the incident in Oval Office remarks.

The use of military force against Latin American drug cartels represents a significant escalation by the Trump administration and could have serious implications for the region.

The US has amassed a large number of military assets around the Caribbean and Latin America, drawing the ire of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

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Trump Directs Military Action Against Cartels Following $50 Million Reward for Venezuela’s Maduro

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According to the New York Times, President Trump has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizations, according to people familiar with the matter.

The decision to bring the American military into the fight is the most aggressive step so far in the administration’s escalating campaign against the cartels. It signals Trump’s continued willingness to use military forces to carry out what has primarily been considered a law enforcement responsibility to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs.

The order provides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against cartels.

U.S. military officials have started drawing up options for how the military could go after the groups, the people familiar with the conversations said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.

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Venezuela’s Cartel del Soles Sanctioned as Terrorist Group Supporting Sinaloa Cartel & Tren de Aragua

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The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Cartel de los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The US stated that Cartel de los Soles is a Venezuela-based criminal group headed by Nicolas Maduro Moros and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals in the Maduro regime that provides material support to foreign terrorist organizations threatening the peace and security of the United States, namely Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel.

“Today’s action further exposes the illegitimate Maduro regime’s facilitation of narco-terrorism through terrorist groups like Cartel de los Soles,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “The Treasury Department will continue to execute on President Trump’s pledge to put America First by cracking down on violent organizations including Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel, and their facilitators, like Cartel de los Soles.”

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RICO Charges Filed Against Dozens of Tren de Aragua and Anti-Tren Gang Members

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Two superseding indictments were unsealed charging 27 individuals currently or formerly associated with the designated foreign terrorist organization Tren de Aragua (TdA) with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy, robbery, and firearms offenses. The first superseding indictment (the “TdA Indictment”) charges six alleged members of TdA. 

The second superseding indictment (the “Anti-Tren Indictment”) charges 19 alleged members of “Anti-Tren,” a splinter faction comprised of former TdA members, along with two additional associates of Anti-Tren. 

Of the 27 defendants, 21 are in federal custody, including 16 who were already in federal criminal, immigration, or state custody and five who were arrested last night and today in operations in New York and other jurisdictions.

“As alleged, Tren de Aragua is not just a street gang – it is a highly structured terrorist organization that has destroyed American families with brutal violence, engaged in human trafficking, and spread deadly drugs through our communities,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Today’s indictments and arrests span three states and will devastate TdA’s infrastructure as we work to completely dismantle and purge this organization from our country.”

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Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan Gang Operating Across South America, Into Mexico and the US

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat 

In the past few years, media outlets have reported violent incidents connected to the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) taking place in New York, Chicago, Miami and in Texas. The latest media frenzy involves at least two apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado that have been allegedly taken over by members of the gang after a surveillance video went viral showing armed men patrolling and entering an apartment.

From its origins as a prison gang in Aragua, Venezuela, Tren de Aragua has quickly expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere in recent years with 5,000 members from South America stretching to the United States. 

With a particular focus on human smuggling and other extortion type acts targeting desperate migrants, the organization has developed additional revenue sources through a range of criminal activities, such as illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, cybercrime, theft, extortion, and drug smuggling.

While they have not fully entered the level of other cartels in the drug world, they have taken advantage of Venezuela's corruption, pr and violence to smuggle migrants first into Colombia and more recently north to Mexico and the United States.

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