The State Department is offering $15 million for Juan Gabriel Rivas Núñez, a Tren de Aragua leader arrested in Roraima in 2023 and on the run since early 2025, after he slipped out of house arrest with an ankle monitor strapped to a lookalike.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department and the Justice Department announced on November 5 a combined $50 million in rewards for three leaders of Tren de Aragua, and $15 million of it is for a man Brazil already had in custody. Juan Gabriel Rivas Núñez, known as “Juancho,” was arrested in Boa Vista, Roraima, in November 2023, was moved to house arrest, and has been a fugitive since early 2025.
A man Washington now charges with terrorism-related crimes was allowed to wait for trial at home in a Brazilian state capital, wearing an ankle monitor. The monitor stayed. He did not. The public record still does not say who signed the order that sent him home.
According to Brazilian press reports, Rivas Núñez was arrested on suspicion of commanding a gold smuggling scheme tied to Venezuela. He later obtained authorization to serve his time at a house in the Paraviana neighborhood of Boa Vista. Reports say he removed the electronic monitor and put it on a man who looked like him, so the surveillance system kept showing him at home while he left. The reports do not name the court that approved the house arrest.
Who Tren de Aragua is
Tren de Aragua started in a Venezuelan prison in Aragua state and grew into a transnational criminal network. The U.S. says it now runs extortion, drug trafficking, illegal gold mining and violent crime across several South American countries. The Trump administration designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization in February 2025. Rivas Núñez, 44, is described by U.S. officials as responsible for supervising its activity in Venezuela. His group was once known as “Sindicato Juancho,” and he is said to have led it since at least 2009.
Why it matters
Brazil shares a long border with Venezuela, and Roraima is the main land gateway between the two countries. A designated terrorist organization’s leader sat in a Brazilian jail, then in a Brazilian living room, and then disappeared. For the American reader, this is a question about whether Brazil can be trusted as a partner in a shared fight against organized crime, and about whether its courts treat suspected foreign gang bosses with the caution Washington expects.
It also fits a pattern the Watch Post Daily has followed. Earlier this month an armed Venezuelan was arrested steps from the White House, a case we covered in our report on the White House arrest. Venezuelan networks are no longer a distant story, and Brazilian security failures are felt in Charlotte and Houston as well as in Boa Vista.
The record
Confirmed by U.S. authorities: the November 5 reward announcement, and a nine-count third superseding indictment unsealed in the Southern District of Texas that names Rivas Núñez, Yohan José Romero (“Yohan Petrica”) and Giovanni Vicente Mosquera Serrano (“El Viejo”). Romero’s reward rose from $4 million to $20 million, and Mosquera Serrano’s from $5 million to $15 million. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department has charged more than 350 Tren de Aragua members and associates since taking office. Juancho’s $15 million is the first reward ever placed on him.
Reported by Brazilian outlets, not confirmed by an official court record available to us: the double and the ankle monitor. Not publicly established: which judge authorized the house arrest, and where Rivas Núñez is now. Some Brazilian headlines say he is still in the country, others say he fled it.
That leaves a gap of roughly 21 months between the escape and a $15 million American price tag. In that time a suspected terrorist-organization leader walked out of a Brazilian court’s supervision, and the courts that watch Brazilian politicians and journalists so closely did not produce a public explanation. The next test is simple: whether Brasília, which says it cooperates with Washington, can answer who approved the release and what it is doing to find him. Tips go to +1-281-787-9939 by call, text, Telegram or WhatsApp, or to any FBI office or U.S. embassy.
The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice announcements, Brazilian press reports from Roraima, Latin Times.
Featured image: Tren de Aragua jewelry store by unknown author, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
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