Caracas/New York, Jan 5 (.) Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are set to make their first court appearance in New York at noon on Monday, facing sweeping federal charges linked to drug trafficking, after the two were kidnapped by US operatives on Saturday and flown from Caracas to Washington, post a “large-scale strike” against the Latin American nation, after months of mounting US military buildup.
Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump declared that the US was now “in charge” of Venezuela, stating that Washington would temporarily be taking the reins of Caracas, and “run the country” until a “judicial transfer of power”, as it will move to “get the oil flowing”, reports CBS News.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio signalled that the US will not be directly running an interim government, but rather intends to directly govern it via exerting “tremendous leverage” on the country, including through what he described as an “oil quarantine”, with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth adding that “President Trump sets the terms”.
The charges against Maduro were unsealed on Saturday by Attorney General Pam Bondi after the couple were taken into military custody during an overnight operation.
“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi said.
Maduro, Flores and four others — including Maduro’s son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro — are named in the superseding indictment. However, it is unclear whether Maduro’s son has been arrested; the other three defendants remain at large.
Maduro is currently facing four charges, which includes heading a so-called narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine gun, and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
US prosecutors allege that Maduro had himself played a central role in a scheme to import “thousands of tons” of cocaine into the US, enriching himself, his family and senior members of Venezuela’s political and military elite.
According to the indictment, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Venezuelan leaders abused positions of public trust for more than 25 years, abusing state institutions to facilitate large-scale drug trafficking operation.
The currently ousted leader is alleged to be at the “forefront” of a narcotics-based corruption system that “benefited violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect and transport tons of cocaine into the United States”.
The indictment alleges that Maduro used senior government roles to aid in cocaine trafficking, including selling diplomatic passports to known traffickers, enabling the transfer of drugs under diplomatic cover and facilitating movement of private planes under the aforementioned cover, to avoid legal scrutiny.
It further claims that between 2004 and 2015, Maduro and Flores worked together — with military escorts — to traffic cocaine seized by Venezuelan authorities, while maintaining state-backed gangs that enforced their operation through kidnappings, beatings and killings.
The prosecutors further alleged that after Maduro became president of Venezuela in 2013, he authorised arrests of Venezuelan military officials to deflect attention after French authorities seized 1.3 tonnes of cocaine shipped on a commercial flight from Venezuela to Paris.
Flores, the currently incarcerated First Lady, is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands worth of bribes in US Dollars to broker a meeting between a major drug trafficker and Venezuela’s then head of the National Anti-Drug Office, Néstor Reverol Torres.
Prosecutors further allege that the trafficker subsequently paid monthly bribes to facilitate cocaine shipments, with Flores receiving a share. Reverol Torres was charged with narcotics offences in 2015 and remains a fugitive to this day.
The case, overseen by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, traces back to the first indictment of Maduro and 14 others in March 2020 during Trump’s first term.
The plane carrying Maduro landed in New York’s Hudson Valley on Saturday afternoon, after which he was transferred to federal custody ahead of Monday’s court proceedings.
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