Tren de Aragua leader known as "The Unspeakable" charged in U.S. federal court
Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday against Tren de Aragua leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores in the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors allege that Guerrero Flores, 42, known by the nicknames "The Unspeakable" or "The Big Eyebrow," ran the multinational crime syndicate for more than a decade, growing the organization from a prison-based gang into a terrorist organization responsible for drug trafficking and violence worldwide. He is charged with participating in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and cocaine importation conspiracy, among other charges.
"Guerrero Flores operated Tren de Aragua like a multinational crime syndicate—laundering money through cryptocurrency, trafficking drugs by the ton, selling weapons of war, and orchestrating acts of terror across borders," DEA Special Agent in Charge Louis A. D'Ambrosio said in a statement. "He ran this empire from prison, shielded by corruption, and in collaboration with a narco-state cartel intent on flooding the United States with cocaine."
The U.S. State Department has offered up to a $5 million reward for information that leads to Guerrero Flores' arrest and/or conviction.
Prosecutors allege Guerrero Flores operated from Tocorón Prison, where he directed members to commit a wide array of crimes, including murders, sex trafficking and money laundering. Alongside other top leaders, he allegedly collected "causa" or income fees from these crimes. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel said in a statement that the leader "grew TdA from a Venezuela-based prison gang to the vile, vicious organization it has become."
CBS News' partner network BBC News reported that Guerrero Flores was in and out of Tocorón for more than a decade. He escaped in 2012 by bribing a guard and was then rearrested in 2013. In 2018, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the crimes of homicide, drug trafficking, identity theft and concealment of weapons of war, among other charges, the BBC reported.
Within the prison walls, Guerrero Flores lived "like a king," with a swimming pool, nightclub and television systems, according to the BBC. Thousands of police and military personnel were sent in 2023 to dismantle the prison's criminal gangs, but when they arrived, Guerrero Flores was gone. He remains at large.
Gang members and associates left Venezuela and spread throughout North, South, and Central America and Spain, prosecutors allege. In recent years, the gang has expanded, recruiting from among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled economic turmoil in their homeland and migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S.
In January, President Trump labeled Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization, alongside other gangs and cartels, and his administration has since ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela and its president, Nicolás Maduro. In recent months, the U.S. has amassed a large military presence in the Caribbean and carried out multiple strikes on boats it claims are carrying drugs from Venezuela.
Robert Clifford, former director for the FBI's MS-13 National Gang Task Force, said he sees the indictment as an evolution in how U.S. law enforcement "pursues a transnational criminal organization like TdA." Clifford said that for years, local law enforcement investigated MS-13 as a prison gang instead of viewing the members as part of a multinational criminal organization.
In the years since, the law enforcement approach to investigating transnational criminal organizations has shifted, Clifford said, and Thursday's indictment is "a model of state, local and federal cooperation and that is the only way to defeat a well-entrenched organization like TdA."