Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was abducted from Caracas along with First Lady Cilia Flores, is expected to appear in a US court soon.
The United States abducted the couple on Saturday and flew them by helicopter to a US warship – and then to New York in the US, where they will stand a trial on multiple US charges.
Here is everything you need to know about what the US is accusing Maduro of.
Where were Maduro and his wife indicted?
The indictment was filed in the Southern District of New York under seal before Christmas Day, December 25.
The document, which was unsealed on Saturday, accuses the abducted Venezuelan president of heading a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tonnes of cocaine.
In the indictment, Maduro is charged alongside his wife, his son, and three others.
The charges are the same as those in an earlier indictment brought against him in a Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first term of US President Donald Trump.
What are the charges?
The main charges brought against Maduro and his identified associates relate to “narco-terrorism” and conspiracy to import cocaine. The offences carry potential maximum sentences of life imprisonment under US law.
In the indictment, charges are 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.
The US officials accuse Maduro and others of working hand in hand with the region’s largest drug trafficking groups, including in Colombia and Mexico.
The US’s own data shows that Venezuela is not among the world’s major drug producers.
Trump has recently claimed that Maduro is behind the Tren de Aragua gang that Washington has proscribed as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO)”.
But US intelligence agencies have said that there is no evidence that Maduro is linked to Tren de Aragua.
What are the accusations against Maduro?
In the indictment, the US law authorities have focused on Venezuela’s decades-long role in the cocaine trade.
“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,” the indictment’s introduction reads.
It identifies Maduro as “at the forefront of that corruption,” claiming he aimed to “transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States”.
“[Maduro] 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,” the indictment notes.
The document also alleges that Maduro “provided Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and facilitated diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela.”
Read the full text of the indictment here.
Who are the others accused?
In the indictment, US authorities have also charged five other individuals.
They include Maduro’s wife, Flores, and son, Nicolas Maduro Guerra, who were identified as central to the US prosecutors’ corruption case.
Diosdado Cabello, the current minister of interior, justice and peace, and former Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin are also charged in the indictment.
Also accused is Tren de Aragua boss Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, widely known by his alias, Nino Guerrero.
The US forces only abducted Maduro alongside his wife in the Saturday raid.
In the indictment, the US accused Flores of ordering kidnappings, beatings, and murders “against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation”.
What have US officials said about Maduro’s abduction?
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X on Saturday that Maduro and his wife “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a press conference that the military raid to abduct Maduro was an action carried out on behalf of the US Department of Justice.
Responding to a question about whether the US Congress was notified before the attack, Rubio told reporters that the raid was “basically a law enforcement function”, adding that it was an instance in which the “Department of War supported the Department of Justice”.
