Arrested on Saturday morning, January 3rd, 2026 in Caracas during an unprecedented military attack, American armed forces, the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were exfiltrated and then transferred to New York, where they are currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a high-security federal prison.

In the United States, Maduro is accused of four federal counts : criminal conspiracy, narcoterrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of automatic weapons and explosive devices, as well as collaboration with criminal organizations classified as terrorists by Washington.

Cilia Flores, for her part, is accused of having provided logistical and financial support to the same criminal organization, according to court documents cited by American media.

Both will appear before Federal Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who is presiding over the case, in Manhattan at 12:00 p.m. local time (17:00 GMT).

The court unsealed an indictment filed by prosecutors that says Maduro headed the Cartel of the Suns, a drug trafficking organization whose name allegedly alludes to Venezuela's military high command. Under his leadership, the indictment alleges, the organization sought not only to enrich itself and consolidate its political power, but also to flood the United States with cocaine and use the drug as a weapon against that country.

Prosecutors describe alliances with the FARC, the ELN, the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas and the Tren de Aragua Cartel, as well as the use of diplomatic passports, airports controlled by government authorities and sea lanes protected by state forces to transport the drugs. According to estimates cited in the indictment, the State Department calculated that around 2020, between 200 and 250 tons of cocaine were transiting Venezuelan territory to the United States each year.

Let's remember that Maduro had already been indicted in Manhattan in March 2020, in a case based on an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) including charges of narcoterrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine and crimes involving weapons and explosive devices, today's indictment completes that of 2020.

SL/ HaitiLibre