In 2020, the Department of Justice did something almost unheard of: it indicted a sitting president of a foreign nation — Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro — on drug trafficking charges. But the case languished for five years, as Maduro continued to rule his South American country.
In an even more extraordinary move, that all changed this weekend.
As an armada of United States battleships closed in on Venezuela, Army Delta Force troops raided Caracas early Saturday, capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Maduro and Flores were quickly removed from their country, flown to New York and placed in jail. They both pleaded not guilty on Monday, as Maduro asserted he had been “kidnapped.”
Questions have been raised about the legality of seizing — and effectively deposing — Maduro in his home country. Trump critics have also noted that barely a month ago, he pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, who was convicted of drug trafficking. Hernandez had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for importing more than 400 tons of cocaine.
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But legal experts say the criminal indictment against Maduro is strong, and the longtime leader could spend the rest of his life in a U.S. prison.
“These are serious charges with Maduro and the five other indicted co-conspirators facing decades, if not life in prison,” Zack Smith, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, told Straight Arrow News. “The 25-page indictment lays out the government’s case against Maduro and the others related to narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and weapons charges.”
Maduro’s first indictment in 2020
In the 2020 indictment, U.S. prosecutors alleged that Maduro led a transnational “narco-terrorism” organization that worked with Colombian guerrillas to transport cocaine to the United States, using the Venezuelan military for protection and distribution.
Other defendants included Venezuela’s vice president for the economy, the chief justice of Venezuela’s Supreme Court and two leaders of the Colombian rebel group FARC.
“The Venezuelan regime, once led by Nicolás Maduro Moros, remains plagued by criminality and corruption,” then-Attorney General William Barr said when the indictment was announced.
“For more than 20 years,” Barr said, “Maduro and a number of high-ranking colleagues allegedly conspired with the FARC, causing tons of cocaine to enter and devastate American communities. Today’s announcement is focused on rooting out the extensive corruption within the Venezuelan government — a system constructed and controlled to enrich those at the highest levels of the government. The United States will not allow these corrupt Venezuelan officials to use the U.S. banking system to move their illicit proceeds from South America nor further their criminal schemes.”
None of those charged in 2020 was ever arrested — until Saturday.
New charges unveiled
Hours after the military operation in Caracas took Maduro into custody, federal Prosecutors unsealed a 25-page superseding indictment that provides more details about the gangs and cartels Maduro and his codefendants allegedly worked with and supported.
Along with Flores, Maduro’s wife, the new indictment also names his son, Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerro, known as “the Prince.”
Prosecutors say that Maduro and Flores ran a massive government-linked smuggling operation, allegedly working with and supporting drug cartels to move cocaine. By 2002, the Justice Department said, about 200 to 250 tons of the drug were being trafficked through Venezuela every year.
“For over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States,” according to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. “As Venezuela’s President and now-de facto ruler, Maduro Moros allows 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 members.”
Since 1999, the defendants have allegedly partnered with specific gangs and cartels, such as the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, Tren de Aragua and Colombian narco-terrorist groups to transport illegal drugs into the U.S.
“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 states.
Between 2006 and 2008, when Maduro was Venezuela’s foreign affairs minister, he allegedly helped drug traffickers by selling them diplomatic passports and facilitating private jets to avoid scrutiny from law enforcement and military officials.
The indictment accuses Maduro and Flores of also working with Venezuelan gangs from 2004 to 2015, as they “maintained their own groups of state-sponsored gangs known as colectivos to facilitate and protect their drug trafficking operation.”
The indictment says they ordered kidnappings, beatings and murders against those who owed them money for drugs or who otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation. Prosecutors say the couple ordered the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas, Venezuela.”
The indictment also accuses Maduro and his wife of illegally packing military-grade weapons, as well as conspiracy to possess weapons, and it says Flores took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to facilitate drug transportation. And even as Maduro and Flores were captured, the indictment says, they were planning to import massive amounts of coke to the U.S.
