Colombia and the DEA seize Tren de Aragua coordinator Luis Saúl Pérez Nieto

Colombian police, working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, arrested Luis Saúl Pérez Nieto on Thursday. U.S. Southern Command announced the capture on Friday and called it a product of tighter military cooperation with Bogotá. Colombian officers said Pérez Nieto, known as Páez and Nairobi, coordinated Tren de Aragua's weapons and drug networks across the region and ran the gang's growth in Peru.

The group began inside Venezuela's Tocorón prison. Pérez Nieto escaped that prison in 2023 with Héctor "Niño Guerrero" Guerrero Flores, the gang's leader. Guerrero Flores was later killed in a U.S. military strike carried out with Venezuelan cooperation earlier this year. Colombian and Peruvian authorities said Washington has requested Pérez Nieto's extradition on charges of terrorism, money laundering, drug trafficking and conspiracy. The Trump administration has not published a charging sheet. The DEA did not answer questions about the U.S. case.

DEA Administrator Terry Cole congratulated President Abelardo de la Espriella and the Colombian National Police. De la Espriella, a conservative who took office this year, has already announced a joint security plan for Bogotá with Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán: more police, more intelligence, more cameras. Thursday's arrest is the first large public result of that turn toward Washington.

Tren de Aragua is no longer a prison clique. Cells have been documented in Colombia, Peru, Chile and in U.S. cities. The arrest does not dismantle those cells. It removes a man police describe as a continental coordinator and puts an extradition request on a Colombian docket. What happens next is a court date and a decision by Bogotá on whether to send him north.

The political meaning sits next to the police work. Colombia and the United States have a long anti-narcotics file. The new president is using that file in public. Southern Command's statement is part of the same display. Pérez Nieto's aliases will now appear on an extradition packet. The cells he is said to have run will keep working until someone else is named in his place.