Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were indicted in a New York court on Saturday, just hours after they were captured by American forces during a high-stakes military operation in their home country.
Mr. Maduro, his wife and other Venezuelan government officials were charged in the Southern District of Manhattan with narco terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of a machine gun and other destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine gun and other destructive devices.
Specifically, the indictment accuses Mr. Maduro of leading “a corrupt illegitimate government” that abused its power to “transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States,” then used the proceeds from the illegal drug activity to enrich himself, his family and Venezuela’s political and military elite.
The indictment alleges that Mr. Maduro and the defendants have “for decades partnered with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world and relied on corrupt officials throughout the region to distribute tons of cocaine to the United States.”
“The profits of that illegal activity flow to corrupt rank-and-file civilian, military and intelligence officials, who operate in a patronage system run by those at the top — referred to as the Cartel de Los Soles or Cartel of the Suns, a reference to the sun insignia affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials,” wrote Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney in Manhattan.
Federal prosecutors say Mr. Maduro and the defendants partnered with various narcotics traffickers and narco-terrorist groups, who move the cocaine from Venezuela to the U.S. via shipping points in the Caribbean and in Latin American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
By 2020, Venezuela had trafficked between 200 and 250 tons of cocaine to the U.S., the indictment says.
Prosecutors say Mr. Maduro helped facilitate drug trafficking by selling Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers so they could move drug money from Mexico to Venezuela under diplomatic cover. He also provided private planes to ensure law enforcement and the military would look the other way about these flights.
On multiple occasions, Mr. Maduro would call the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico and say that a diplomatic mission would be arriving by private plane. The plane would return under the drug cover.
Mr. Maduro had accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes to broker a meeting between “a large scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office. The drug trafficker later arranged a monthly bribe to that official, which amounted to roughly $100,000 to ensure safe passage for each flight transporting cocaine.
