US indictment alleges Maduro ran ‘corrupt, illegitimate government’ fuelled by cocaine

A newly unsealed United States Justice Department indictment contends that Nicolás Maduro’s government was fuelled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tons of cocaine.

Maduro is charged alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also arrested on Saturday. Also indicted are his son and three others.

US authorities allege that Maduro and his family “provided law enforcement cover and logistical support” to cartels moving drugs throughout the region, resulting in as much as 250 tons of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020, according to the indictment.

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 faces 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 was captured 36 years to the day after Noriega was removed by American forces.

And as was the case with the Panamanian leader, lawyers for Maduro are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of a foreign state, which is a bedrock principle of international and US law.

It’s an argument that is unlikely to succeed and was largely settled as a matter of law in Noriega’s trial, legal experts say.

Although Trump’s ordering of the operation in Venezuela raises constitutional concerns because it wasn’t authorized by Congress, now that Maduro is in the US, courts will likely bless his prosecution because, like Noriega, the US doesn’t recognize him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

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