Venezuela’s toppled leader Nicolas Maduro is now held in a US Brooklyn jail on Sunday awaiting drug charges after he and his wife had been taken by US special forces on Saturday.
Brooklyn jail also held other high-profile inmates such as convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein associates’ Elaine Maxwell and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Freed.
Maduro is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Monday. The US Justice Department has charged Maduro and his wife with drug trafficking.
On Aug 7, the state department has increased the reward offer up to $50 million for
information leading to the arrest of Maduro.
According to the US State Department release, “Maduro helped manage and ultimately lead the Cartel of the Suns, a Venezuelan drug-trafficking organization, comprised of high-ranking Venezuelan officials,” and “coordinated with narcotics traffickers in Honduras and other countries, to facilitate large-scale drug trafficking.”
It also said that in March 2020, the Southern District of New York had charged Maduro for narco-terrorism, and conspiracy to import cocaine into the US.
The US doubled down on Maduro on Dec. 11.
“Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people,” said US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.
“These sanctions undo the Biden Administration’s failed attempt to make a deal with Maduro, enabling his dictatorial and brutal control at the expense of the Venezuelan and American people. Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury is holding the regime and its circle of cronies and companies accountable for its continued crimes,” Bessent added.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court Appoints Social as Interim President
After the fall of socialist leader Maduro, Venezuela’s Supreme Court is already trying to put another socialist figure into power.
“It is hereby ordered that Delci Eloina Rodriguez-Gomez, executive vice president of the republic, assume and exercise all the powers, duties and authorities inherent to the office of the president,” announced Tania D’Amelio, President of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela.
The former vice president used to actively support the “socialist revolution” of the late Hugo Chavez.
US President Donald Trump said the US will run Venezuela until there’s a safe transition and that Maduro’s vice president would lead the nation for now instead of the opposition leader whom Trump said lacked the respect to govern Venezuela.
As for Venezuela’s vice president, US officials say they reserve the right to take military action if she doesn’t respect US interests.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there’s a quarantine around Venezuela to prevent sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of the country so that the US could exert leverage over what happens next.
“We don’t need Venezuela’s oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we’re not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States,” Rubio told the news media.
It is unclear how this will play out, as Trump said the US would now run Venezuela.
