A newly unsealed US justice department indictment accuses Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tons of cocaine.
Maduro is charged alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, his son and three others. The charges include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices. The indictment was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas and unsealed on Saturday.
The indictment alleges that Maduro partnered with violent drug traffickers and narco-terrorists, including the Sinaloa cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, to allow the shipment of cocaine into the US in exchange for profits. Maduro and his family provided law enforcement cover and logistical support, resulting in up to 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020.
Maduro’s wife is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between a drug trafficker and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. Nephews of Maduro’s wife were recorded agreeing to send multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine shipments from Maduro’s presidential hangar, stating they were “at war” with the United States.
Maduro was arrested in a military operation in Venezuela and brought to New York, where he is expected to be detained at a federal jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial. Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that Maduro and his wife “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
