The U.S. unseals indictment charging Venezuela’s President Maduro and top officials with large-scale drug trafficking and narco-terrorism
The United States Department of Justice has unsealed a superseding indictment charging Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other senior officials with narco-terrorism and a massive cocaine trafficking conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors, in the indictment marked S4 11 Cr. 205 (AKH), accuse six high-ranking Venezuelans of orchestrating a decades-long scheme to flood the United States with thousands of tons of cocaine while partnering with designated foreign terrorist organisations and transnational criminal groups.
Those charged include President Maduro; Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace; and Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former Interior and Justice minister.
Others named are Venezuela’s First Lady, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro; Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, the president’s son and a member of the National Assembly; and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua gang.
According to the Department of Justice, the defendants participated in a narco-terrorism conspiracy spanning from about 1999 to 2025.
Prosecutors allege they partnered with groups such as the FARC and its successors, the ELN, the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas/Cartel del Noreste, and Tren de Aragua.
The indictment further claims Venezuelan government institutions, military units and diplomatic channels were used to protect and transport cocaine shipments, provide safe haven for traffickers and terrorists, and enrich officials through corruption, bribery and money laundering networks commonly referred to as the “Cartel de los Soles.”
The charges include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of drug trafficking crimes.
