The killing of Hector Guerrero Flores, also known as Niño Guerrero, by US and Venezuelan forces struck a substantial blow to the gang he helped found: Tren de Aragua. Deborah Bonello, managing editor of InSight Crime, and co-director Jeremy McDermott discuss what the killing of Niño Guerrero means for the gang, organized crime in Venezuela and beyond, and the United States’ “drug war” in Latin America.
[00:00:04] Deborah: The killing of Hector Guerrero Flores, also known as Niño Guerrero by US and Venezuelan forces, struck a substantial blow to the gang he helped found, Tren de Aragua, which was, of course, designated a foreign terrorist organization in February last year. I’m Deborah Bonello, managing editor of InSight Crime, and in this week’s Insight Take, co-director Jeremy McDermott and I are asking what the killing of Guerrero means for Tren de Aragua. Was this a centralized prison gang led by one man, or had it already become a loose criminal franchise that can survive without a single leader?
The killing of Niño Guerrero, who had a $5 million bounty on his head from the US government, is being framed by the Trump administration as a decisive blow against one of the hemisphere’s most dangerous criminal organizations. But is that what actually is happening? And what does his death mean for a gang that has spread far beyond the Venezuelan prison where it was born?
Today we’re going to try and separate three things: the man, the mythology, and the machine he leaves behind. So let’s start with the man himself, Jerry. Who was Niño Guerrero?
[00:01:23] Jerry: Okay. Héctor Guerrero Flores. He was in prison for murder. I think he went in in 2005. Venezuela’s prisons at that time were amongst the most violent in the world. And in 2011, there’s a big change in the prison system after there’s a rebellion in El Rodeo prison just outside Caracas, where I went to visit. And the prison leaders, who we learned for the first time were called pranatos, held 4000 troops at bay in this prison. And it was an international spectacle, and then President Hugo Chavez said: This can never happen again. It’s just humiliating and embarrassing. And he set up a prison ministry under a woman called Iris Varela, who’s still out there, one of the more radical chavistas. And so she decided to basically hand the prisons over to designated pranes on the guarantee that there was no more trouble, no more embarrassment, and that they could just be left to run the place.
And Niño Guerrero turns himself into the prison king, one of the biggest prisons in Venezuela at the time. But he goes even further perhaps than the traditional structure. And the pran structure comes with a pyramid of roles. There are luceros, the lieutenants, etc. It’s a great way to organize a criminal group both inside and outside prison, Deb, and Niño Guerrero was one of the ones that really consolidated this system
SEE ALSO: Tren de Aragua: From Prison Gang to Transnational Criminal Enterprise
[00:03:10] Deborah: So was he more like a kingpin or a CEO, or was he more of a brand even? How do you see it?
[00:03:18] Jerry: I think to start with, when he was the lord of his criminal fiefdom. But unlike other pranes, he was smart, very smart. And he began to expand outside of the prison, first in the state of Aragua, and then he’s sending little sort of criminal shock troops to the Caribbean coast up in Sucre, where there’s a big drug departure point. He’s sending them to Venezuela, the Colombian border, which, of course, has all sorts of contraband going out there. So he is a man with a bigger vision.
But then everything changes. And we’re talking about 2015 and beyond, and this is when 8 million Venezuelans decide to leave the country, providing a unique criminal opportunity. And Venezuelan criminals, not Niño Guerrero, not Aragua, take advantage of this initially. And this isn’t Niño Guerrero sitting in his prison cell going, “Ha ha. I’m now going to exploit all of these 8 million Venezuelans.” No, accompanying the Venezuelans over more than a decade were criminals. And they robbed them. They extorted them; they took women and forced them into prostitution. And then when they settled, particularly in Colombia, which took more than 2 million Venezuelans, Peru, and Chile. When they landed there and set up, the Venezuelans continued to be preyed upon by these Venezuelan criminals who set up little gangs everywhere. And this is where Niño Guerrero comes in, because he goes, okay, that’s my mate in Peru. Now, look, you know, what do you need? Oh, I need some more guys. I need some weapons. Don’t worry. That’ll come from the prison. And I’m going to put you in touch with the guys in Ecuador and Colombia who are handling human smuggling and human trafficking networks, and they’re going to steer the business to you, and you steer business back to them, okay? And everybody makes money, and you just send me some money back to Tocorón. That is when Aragua goes transnational.
SEE ALSO: Niño Guerrero Is Dead. This Is How He Built Latin America’s Most Notorious Criminal Franchise
[00:05:49] Deborah: So how important was the 2023 raid on Tocorón prison?
[00:05:56] Jerry: The watershed. And it might be worth saying: What country sends 11,000 troops and officials and armored vehicles to take control of its own prison? Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous the system was in Venezuela. They didn’t want a repeat of the Robayo scandal, where, you know, there are tanks and 4000 guys, even paratroopers on the outside, and they just can’t do anything. So however, they send these 11,000 guys, but Guerrero already knows it’s going to happen. And we know from sources in the prison that he called a curfew two days before the operation, and no one saw him after that initial curfew, apparently he and most of the Aragua guys, with large sums of money and weapons and other sorts of supplies, left the prison.
So when the takeover happened, there was nobody there to fight him off, and they were long gone with all their plunder. I suspect that was also a deliberate attempt on the part of the Venezuelan regime. Let’s avoid embarrassment. This guy has been protected by us for years. He may have now been designated a bad guy by the Maduro regime. But you know what? Let’s not upset him too much. And he disappears. But we’ll come back to that in a bit.
[00:07:22] Deborah: So it sounds like the state took the prison, but not Niño Guerrero and not the criminal group at large. And the Trump administration has designated Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization and one of the most violent threats in the hemisphere. How true is that? How accurate is that?
[00:07:45] Jerry: Okay. By then, Aragua was mainstream news in South America, you know, because they were hyper violent. They had set themselves up in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. There were outposts in other parts, and they’ve become this hyper-violent brand. So basically any Venezuelan that was caught doing something or working in a gang was described as Aragua. This became cemented when, in 2023, now President Trump on the campaign trail picks up Aragua. He calls them a hyper-violent gang. He says they are occupying the United States. Sort of depicting them as some kind of invasion force. This was part of his anti-immigration platform, which very successfully got him elected into office, among other elements. Then in 2025, he designates them a foreign terrorist organization.
SEE ALSO: Tren de Aragua: Fact vs. Fiction
Let’s unpick that, unpick that tiny bit, Deb. What are the federal criteria for a terrorist organization? They are one, the use of violence to intimidate or coerce the civilian population. Now that is basically the basis of the extortion model, you know, terrify everyone so they just pay up. So yeah, I think that’s probably a fair one. In the second section, it’s got the use of violence and intimidation to influence US policy or affect government operations.
And I can see this with ISIS, you know, in the Twin Towers and all that sort of stuff. I can’t really see this with Aragua. And the other thing is that even in its heyday, Deb, it was never a vertically integrated series of gangs. It was a horizontal organization with federated gangs that chatted with each other, and helped each other in terms of mutual benefit and maximization of profits. So Niño Guerrero, again, he’s not sitting in his cell and going “haha – the pranes are going to do this and the girls are going to do that. And we’re going to take over the prostitution business in Trujillo in Peru.”
This was happening because these are the autonomous guys doing their own thing. But of course that’s not what the terrorism label is about, frankly, is it Deb? It’s about the domestic audience, and getting seen to be serious on crime. And it’s also about the toolbox, the judicial toolbox, that designating a group as a terrorist organization gives the US authorities. And it’s way different from fighting a criminal group. So I think that’s also being used to justify missile strikes.
SEE ALSO: US Foreign Terrorist Designations in Latin America
[00:10:55] Deborah: I think the FTO designations are also part of this sort of increasing pressure that you’re seeing coming from the US on governments in our region to act because you’ve seen some governments get on board with that and other governments push back on it.
But I think it’s fair to say that Tren de Aragua is dangerous. Yes, but not an omnipotent, vertically integrated criminal corporation.
[00:11:23] Jerry: Definitely. Not after the fall of Tocorón, Deb, I think that’s the key moment. That was the operational hub. That’s where they got their recruits from. That was a money-making operation in itself, because all the prisoners inside had what was called the ‘causa’, which was extortion. This is where they trained; they planned operations, etc.
And I think maybe now is the moment to bring out where he was killed. He’s killed in Bolivar. Deb, this is in the middle of nowhere. I’d be surprised if there was a paved road to the place he was. He was blown up. It was probably a dirt track. This is not some center of an international criminal organization. I think it’s quite telling that he’s there. He’s there because he feels safe there because another one of the founders of Aragua is running a gang there, called the Sindicato Las Claritas, which is involved in the gold trade. He’s clearly not running any transnational criminal enterprise. So I think from 2023, we see a pretty steep decline. And this federation, which was already hugely autonomous, I think becomes almost totally autonomous.
And sure, Niño can ring up his mates in Chile or whatever and say, look, you know, we need to do this, that, and the other. And they may go, yeah, there’s something in it for me. Sure. But you know, the notion that I’m going to be sending you guys, and we’re going to expand here and take over that. Absolutely not. So no, I don’t think his death is a body blow. I don’t think it’s a body blow because I don’t think Aragua is really much today. But Venezuelan organized crime and transnational organized crime is, so let’s not play that down.
SEE ALSO: The Prison Dilemma in the Americas
[00:13:27] Deborah: So what does the strike tell us about the current government of Delcy Rodriguez? You know, obviously we saw the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. I think we all woke up to that just after New Year. There’s been a huge amount of pressure on her government to get in line with what the US wants to see, not just on anti-narcotics, of course, but also to do with the mining industries and oil and things like that. So what do you take from this latest move in terms of Venezuela’s growing cooperation with the US on criminality and the other US interests I just mentioned?
[00:14:13] Jerry: This is the most interesting part of the whole thing, Deb. Niño Guerrero was protected by a former governor of Aragua state. A guy called me who was also a sort of finance minister, and he fell from grace under Maduro, and they lost their political protection. It doesn’t cost Delcy Rodriguez anything to target Niño Guerrero or Aragua. Okay. They don’t have any political relevance anymore. And this was clearly a scalp that President Trump wanted. And he’s how involved were the Venezuelans in the operation? I’m not sure they would have been that involved.
What is really the question now is what about those criminal groups that are deeply embedded with the Venezuelan regime today? And I’m thinking principally of the Colombian guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN. If there are coordinated offenses in Venezuela against the ELN and coordinated offensives in Colombia—and by the way, Deb, we’re about to have Colombian presidential elections, second round. The favorite to win is a right wing political candidate who’s promised to just kill everybody, and target the ELN in particular.
So what we could see is a bilateral campaign against the ELN. And that is a complete game changer. Now, I’m not sure if Delcy Rodriguez has got the political juice to pull that off because the military is in bed with the ELN. They make an enormous amount of money with the ELN off the drug trade, the smuggling trade, the gold trade. This is going to be a direct attack on the financing of senior Chavista figures and the military. And this is a make-or-break moment. And I don’t think the US is going to push for that, at least not until the midterms are done. You know I don’t think they want any wobbles in Venezuela. Venezuela is one of the few foreign policy success stories. And it needs to remain steady until next year.
SEE ALSO: Special Series: Maduro’s Arrest and Its Criminal Aftermath in Venezuela
[00:16:34] Deborah: So to finish, Jerry, after, in the short term, do you think we can expect to see more violence connected to organized crime in Venezuela? And what do you think the death of Niño Guerrero, what impact do you think that will have on Aragua in the short term?
[00:16:53] Jerry: I think pretty much no effect on Aragua. I think it has a huge amount of symbolic value. And he was the most visible, the only visible face, really, of Aragua. He was the one that was associated with this brand of hyperviolence, this franchise that was adopted with gusto by Venezuelans abroad. I think now if you remember, Deb, the deportation of several Venezuelans allegedly linked to Aragua, and they ended up in the prison in El Salvador, you know, in 60 to a cell suddenly. And I’m not sure it’s that cool to call yourself Aragua. So I’ve got a feeling they were going, okay, I don’t want anything to do with that anymore. So I think even the franchise model and the brand have died.
We need to keep our eye on Venezuelan transnational organized crime, particularly them jumping into the cocaine trade because Aragua never did. They’re one of the few groups that went transnational not off the back of the drug trade but, of course, the migration flows, the human smuggling, and human trafficking. But now they’ve got infrastructure everywhere. I would be surprised if they don’t get a bit more involved. So I think we’ve got to keep an eye on Venezuelan organized crime. But I think we have to stop describing every single Venezuelan gang as Aragua, which seems to have been the case by many governments and the US administration.
[00:18:26] Deborah: Yes, indeed. Never a dull moment in this whole landscape that we’re watching in Latin America. Jerry, thanks so much for that. Don’t forget fair audiences to look at all our criminal profiles around Venezuela. We also have a deep investigation into the fact and fiction around the Aragua gang. And keep watching this week for more coverage around the death of Nino Guerrero. Bye for now.
Go to InSightCrime.org for profiles, reporting, and investigations on this developing story.