By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Thursday said it placed sanctions on the leader of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and five other members.
The sanctions target Tren de Aragua’s leader, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, also known as “Nino Guerrero,” and five others who are considered key leaders and affiliates of the criminal gang, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Tren de Aragua, Salvadoran gang MS-13, and several significant Mexican drug cartels were designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department, while the Treasury accused Tren de Aragua of engaging in activities that threaten “public safety throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
“The Trump Administration will not allow Tren de Aragua to continue to terrorize our communities and harm innocent Americans,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. “In line with President Trump’s mandate to Make America Safe Again, Treasury remains dedicated to dismantling Tren de Aragua and disrupting the group’s campaign of violence.”
The office said that all property and interests in property held by Guerrero inside the United States would be frozen. Entities with a majority stake that are held by other senior Tren de Aragua members, as well as Guerrero’s wife, Wendy Marbelys Rios Gomez, would also be blocked from carrying out transactions in the United States or with American citizens.
The other high-ranking gang members who were sanctioned include Yohan Jose Romero, a close associate of Guerrero and a co-founder of the gang accused of illegal mining operations in Venezuela, as well as Josue Angel Santana Pena, Wilmer Jose Perez Castillo, and Felix Anner Castillo Rondon. Pena is accused of helping direct Tren de Aragua from within a Venezuelan prison at one point, Castillo is a leader of Tren de Aragua’s drug trafficking efforts, and Rondon has been implicated in homicides and human trafficking cases.
“These other [Tren de Aragua] leaders are involved in atrocious crimes such as illicit drug trade, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, extortion, sexual exploitation of women and children, and money laundering, among other activities,” the State Department said in a Thursday statement that announced the latest round of sanctions.
President Donald Trump has said that Tren de Aragua is coordinating its U.S. activities with the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro and said that it’s enough to justify deportations of illegal immigrants who are alleged to belong to the Venezuelan gang to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Venezuelan officials have denied they are directing the Tren de Aragua gang. However, a report from the Human Rights Foundation in April accused the Maduro regime of using Tren de Aragua to “target and eliminate dissidents beyond Venezuela’s borders,” including a former Venezuelan army official who was killed in Chile in 2024.
The U.S. State Department in July 2024 issued a $5 million reward for information leading to Guerrero’s arrest and conviction.
In June, the Treasury Department announced it had placed sanctions on Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano, an alleged leader of Tren de Aragua, who was also placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Mosquera has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on drug trafficking and terrorism-related criminal activity, officials have said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
