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Arrest charged in a newly unsealed U.S. Department of Justice indictment Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro runs a “corrupt, illegitimate government” whose massive drug trafficking operation has fueled thousands of tons of cocaine flooding into the United States.
Maduro and his wife were arrested early Saturday in a shocking military operation in Venezuela, setting the stage for a major test for U.S. prosecutors as they seek convictions in the case. manhattan The court targets the oil-rich South American country’s longtime leader.
minister of justice Pam Bundy A post on the X website said Maduro and his wife “will soon face the full wrath of American justice in American courts.”
Here are the accusations against Maduro and the charges he faces.
Maduro faces drug, weapons charges
Maduro was charged along with his wife, son and three others. Maduro has been charged with four counts: conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Maduro faces the same charges as in a 2020 indictment filed against him in Manhattan federal court. trump card Presidency. The new indictment unsealed on Saturday adds to the charges against Maduro’s wife and was filed in the Southern District of New York on Christmas Eve.
It was unclear when Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, first appeared in a Manhattan court. A video posted on social media by a White House account on Saturday night showed a smiling Maduro being escorted through a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in New York by two federal agents, who grabbed his arms. He is expected to be held in Brooklyn federal prison while awaiting trial.
U.S. says Maduro allows ‘rampant cocaine-fueled corruption’
The indictment accuses Maduro of working with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world” to allow thousands of tons of cocaine to be shipped into the United States. Authorities accuse powerful and violent drug trafficking organizations such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trende Aragua gang of working directly with the Venezuelan government and then funneling profits to high-ranking officials who help and protect them in exchange.
The indictment alleges that Maduro “allowed cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family.”
U.S. authorities accuse Maduro and his family of “providing law enforcement cover and logistical support” to drug cartels that move drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine being trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment. The indictment said the drugs were transported by high-speed vessels, fishing boats and container ships or by plane at clandestine airports.
“This cycle of drug-based corruption enriches Venezuelan officials and their families, while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and help produce, protect and transport large quantities of cocaine into the United States,” the indictment states.
Bribery charges and kidnapping and murder charges
The United States accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering the kidnappings, beatings and murders of “those who owe them drug money or otherwise disrupt their drug trafficking operations.” That included the killing of a local drug lord in Caracas, the indictment said.
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 Counter-Narcotics Office. In a corrupt deal, drug traffickers agreed to pay monthly bribes to the director of the Office of Narcotics Control and approximately $100,000 per flight carrying cocaine “to ensure the safe passage of the flights.” Some of the money then went to Maduro’s wife, the indictment said.
In 2015, Maduro’s wife’s nephews agreed in a taped meeting with confidential U.S. government sources to transport “hundreds of kilograms of cocaine” from Maduro’s “presidential hangar” at a Venezuelan airport. “They were ‘at war’ with the United States,” the nephews explained during the taped session, according to the indictment. They were both sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2017 for conspiring to transport large quantities of cocaine into the United States, before being released in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap for seven imprisoned Americans.
Rubio says operation to capture Maduro is a ‘law enforcement function’
At a press conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio Dan Kaine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military raid that captured Maduro and his wife was an action taken on behalf of the Justice Department. Kaine said the operation was conducted “at the request of the Department of Justice.”
In response to a question about whether Congress had been notified, Rubio said the U.S. raid on the couple was “basically a law enforcement function,” adding that it was an example of the “War Department supporting the Justice Department.” He called Maduro “a fugitive from American justice with a $50 million bounty on his head.”
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Richer reported from Washington.