A newly unsealed US Justice Department indictment accuses captured 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.
The arrest of Maduro and his wife in a stunning military operation early Saturday in Venezuela sets the stage for a major test for US prosecutors as they seek to secure a conviction in a Manhattan courtroom against the longtime leader of the oil-rich South American nation.
The action by President Donald Trump’s administration prompted concern in South Africa’s government, which released a statement on Saturday saying it viewed the US operation as “a large-scale military strike” and a “manifest violation” of the UN Charter, arguing it amounted to unlawful unilateral force against the sovereignty of a member state.
Pretoria warned that military invasions of sovereign states have historically produced instability and deepened crises. The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday following calls for intervention from countries such as South Africa, Colombia, Russia and China. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned the US action set a “dangerous precedent”, Reuters reported.
Several of Washington’s allies – including the UK and the EU – signalled little sympathy for Maduro while stopping short of endorsing the US operation, stressing that any change in Caracas must comply with international law. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain “shed no tears” over the end of Maduro’s rule but reiterated his support for the UN Charter, while EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc views Maduro as lacking legitimacy yet called for restraint and respect for international law; Germany urged de-escalation and a political solution on similar grounds.
The US has largely brushed off the diplomatic backlash by reframing the raid as a criminal-justice operation rather than a geopolitical intervention – and by arguing it was aimed at disrupting a “narco-terrorist” network. Trump went further, telling reporters the US would “run the country” temporarily until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition, and said the operation should serve as a warning to anyone who threatens American sovereignty or lives.
In a post on X, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Maduro and his wife “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts”.
Here’s a look at the accusations against Maduro and the charges he faces.
‘Narco-terrorism’
Maduro is charged alongside his wife, his son and three others. Maduro is indicted on four counts: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Maduro is facing the same charges as in an earlier indictment brought against him in a Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. The new indictment, unsealed on Saturday, which adds charges against Maduro’s wife, was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas.
It was not immediately clear when Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, would make their first appearance at the courthouse in Manhattan. A video posted Saturday night on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through a US Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York by two federal agents grasping his arms. He was expected to be detained at a federal jail in Brooklyn while awaiting trial.
Cocaine-fuelled corruption allowed to ‘flourish’
The indictment accuses Maduro of partnering with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world” to allow for the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the US. Authorities allege powerful and violent drug-trafficking organisations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Tren de Aragua gang, worked directly with the Venezuelan government and then sent profits to high-ranking officials who helped and protected them in exchange.
Maduro allowed “cocaine-fuelled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,” the indictment alleges.
US authorities allege that Maduro and his family “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support” to cartels moving drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment. Drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or on planes from clandestine airstrips, the indictment says.
“This cycle of narcotics-based corruption lines the pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect, and transport tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment says.
Kidnappings and murders
The US accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation”. That includes the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, according to the indictment.
Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. In a corrupt deal, the drug trafficker then agreed to pay a monthly bribe to the director of the anti-drug office as well as about $100,000 for each cocaine-carrying flight “to ensure the flight’s safe passage.” Some of that money then went to Maduro’s wife, the indictment says.
Nephews of Maduro’s wife were heard during recorded meetings with confidential US government sources in 2015 agreeing to send “multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine shipments” from Maduro’s “presidential hangar” at a Venezuelan airport. The nephews during the recorded meetings explained “that they were at ‘war’ with the United States”, the indictment alleges. They were both sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for conspiring to send tons of cocaine into the US before being released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for seven imprisoned Americans.
‘Law enforcement function’
During a news conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cast the military raid that captured Maduro and his wife as an action carried out on behalf of the department of justice. Caine said the operation was made “at the request of the justice department”.
Rubio, as he responded to a question about whether Congress had been notified, said the US raid to get the couple was “basically a law enforcement function,” adding that it was an instance in which the “Department of War supported the department of justice”. He called Maduro “a fugitive of American justice with a $50m reward” over his head.
Reporting by Alanna Durkin Richer and Larry Neumeister for Associated Press. Edited by Vernon Wessels.
Top image: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro raises up his closed fists during a news conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, July 31 2024, three days after his disputed reelection. Picture: AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File.
