NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors charged the recently captured Venezuelan Dictator, Nicolas Maduro, with narco-terrorism conspiracy, weapons charges, and cocaine-importation conspiracy, according to an indictment unsealed Saturday in a federal court in New York.
The charges follow President Donald Trump’s announcement of a military operation early Saturday in Venezuela, in which the U.S. military and law enforcement struck Caracas and captured Maduro alongside his wife, Cilia Flores.
Maduro’s son and other senior Venezuelan officials are also expected to face charges.
Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a post on X that Maduro and his wife “will soon face the wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
The indictment accuses Venezuela’s leaders of having “abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States.”
It states that Maduro and his accomplices have partnered with international drug smuggling organizations since 1999. Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Colombia’s narco-terrorist group the Zetas, and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel are said to have been involved.
Furthermore, the document details Maduro’s alleged actions taken within the conspiracy.
The indictment additionally mentions that throughout 2006 and 2008, when Maduro served as foreign minister, he allegedly sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to known narcotics smugglers “in order to assist traffickers seeking to move drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela under diplomatic cover.”
Furthermore, the indictment also says that Maduro and Flores ordered kidnappings, beatings, and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation.” The orders include the murder of a local drug lord in Caracas.
Within the past year, the Trump administration has increased pressure on Maduro, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio designating the “Cartel de los Soles” as a foreign terrorist organization, as well as boosting military presence along the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Maduro will be formally arraigned this week in New York City.
