How cocaine and corruption led to the indictment of Maduro

A NEWLY unsealed US Justice Department indictment accuses captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tons of cocaine.

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>> A screenshot of a post by Donald Trump on his Truth Social account showing a captured Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima

The arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, 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 New York courtroom against the longtime leader of the oil-rich South American nation.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and Flores “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:

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 Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. The new indictment unsealed Saturday, which adds charges against Flores, was filed under seal in the Southern District of New York just before Christmas.

Maduro made his first appearance yesterday in federal court 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 while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.