U.S. Offers $50 Million for Three Tren de Aragua Leaders, Including FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive, as Florida Cases Against the Gang Mount

The U.S. government is offering rewards of up to $50 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of three alleged leaders of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization, including one man on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The Justice Department announced the rewards Thursday, Nov. 5, along with a newly unsealed nine-count indictment in Texas.

The case itself is being prosecuted in Houston, not Miami, and the announcement named no Florida defendants. But it lands in the state that is home to roughly 40% of the nation's Venezuelan immigrants, and where federal prosecutors have brought Tren de Aragua cases of their own over the past year.

The three men and the rewards

The rewards are offered through the State Department's Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, run by its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, and apply to arrests or convictions in any country, according to the Justice Department. Two of the offers are sharp increases over earlier rewards; the third is new.

Mosquera Serrano has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list since June 2025. All three remain fugitives, according to the Justice Department. Romero and Mosquera Serrano have been described in earlier reward announcements and news coverage as co-founders of the gang alongside its principal leader, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, known as "Niño Guerrero," who is not part of this announcement.

What they are charged with

The three were first charged in 2025 in a six-count second superseding indictment in the Southern District of Texas with conspiring to provide and providing material support to Tren de Aragua. A nine-count third superseding indictment was returned in July 2026 and unsealed this week, the Justice Department said. Mosquera Serrano is also charged with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine and with international cocaine distribution.

Prosecutors allege the gang's leaders used threats, beatings and killings to enforce payments and keep control, according to Border Report's account of the indictment. The charges are accusations, and all three men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation with help from the Houston Police Department, the Harris County Sheriff's Office, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Colombian National Police and Colombia's Attorney General's Office. The case is part of Joint Task Force Vulcan, created in 2019 to target MS-13 and later expanded to Tren de Aragua, and of the Homeland Security Task Force established by executive order.

What officials said

Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department has charged "more than 350 members and associates of Tren de Aragua" since Trump returned to office and urged anyone with information on the three men's whereabouts to contact the FBI. "Their criminal enterprise has spread fear, violence, and lawlessness," Blanche said in a post on X, according to NBC 6 South Florida.

U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz of the Southern District of Texas said, "These gang members are monsters, and we've indicted them as such." DEA Administrator Terrance Cole said, "TdA spreads violence, fear, and instability wherever it operates." Under Secretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno described the rewards as part of a broader effort to dismantle narcoterrorist organizations in the region.

How Tren de Aragua grew

Tren de Aragua began as a prison gang in Venezuela in the mid-2000s and now operates across the Western Hemisphere and inside the United States, according to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors tie it to drug, firearms and sex trafficking, kidnapping, robbery, fraud, extortion and murder. The department says the group has targeted or carried out ATM "jackpotting" attacks, which force cash machines to dispense money, in 47 states, the District of Columbia and several other countries.

The Florida connection

Two of Florida's three federal judicial districts, the Southern District based in Miami and the Middle District based in Tampa, are listed as participants in Joint Task Force Vulcan, according to the Justice Department release announcing the rewards. That release did not tie the three fugitives or the Texas case to Florida.

Federal prosecutors in South Florida have brought several Tren de Aragua-linked cases in the past year. In May, as part of a nationwide crackdown in which more than 25 defendants were charged, the Southern District of Florida filed a criminal complaint against three people with alleged ties to the gang, accused of selling narcotics and firearms to an undercover ATF agent in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Agents seized 500 MDMA pills, two firearms, cocaine, ketamine and methamphetamine, the Justice Department said.

In August, a federal jury convicted two Orlando men, Kevin Albornos-Martinez, 29, and Johan Landazury-Albornos, 24, of conspiring to possess fentanyl and methamphetamine with intent to distribute and conspiring to commit Hobbs Act robbery. Prosecutors said an alleged Sinaloa Cartel member in Mexico directed them to assemble a crew, which included multiple Tren de Aragua members, to rob a supposed South Florida trafficker of 45 kilograms of methamphetamine and 30 kilograms of fentanyl. The target was an undercover officer, and each man faces up to 40 years in prison, NBC 6 reported. ATF, Homeland Security Investigations and the Broward Sheriff's Office investigated.

Florida's Venezuelan community

About 40% of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States live in Florida, far more than in any other state, according to 2024 American Community Survey data reported by WLRN. More than 200,000 Venezuelans with Temporary Protected Status were living in Florida before the Department of Homeland Security revoked that status for more than 500,000 Venezuelans nationwide in October 2025, WLRN reported.

The rewards announced Thursday target its leadership rather than rank-and-file members, and the Justice Department's tip lines accept information from anywhere in the world.

How to report information

The FBI is asking anyone with information about Romero, Mosquera Serrano or Rivas Núñez to contact the bureau by phone, text, WhatsApp or Telegram at 281-787-9939, through a local FBI field office or a U.S. embassy or consulate, or online at tips.fbi.gov.

What's next

The Texas indictment will move forward only if one of the three men is captured and brought to the United States, which is the point of the larger rewards. In South Florida, the two Orlando men convicted in August face sentencing in federal court, and the Southern District of Florida, which brought that case, is now looking for new leadership after U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones resigned on Friday.