Captured Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife have been indicted on charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated Saturday morning.
In the indictment released Saturday morning, a grand jury found that Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, “abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States.” The scathing indictment alleged that Maduro “now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote” drug trafficking operations that “enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite” and “concentrated power and wealth in the hands of” his wife and family.
President Donald Trump, in the early morning hours of the first weekend of 2026, announced on Truth Social that U.S. forces had “successfully carried out a large scale strike” against Venezuela. The operation culminated in the capture of Maduro and his wife, both of whom Trump noted had been removed from the country via plane. Three hours later, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, wrote on X that the Maduros had been indicted on four separate charges and will face trial in the U.S. court system.
“Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York. Nicolas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” Bondi wrote. “They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
“On behalf of the entire U.S. DOJ, I would like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People, and a huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers,” the attorney general’s post concludes.
Maduro’s announced capture comes after the Trump administration conducted dozens of strikes on alleged narco-trafficking boats off the coast of Venezuela over the past several months.
Just over an hour after Trump announced the toppling of the socialist dictator in control since 2013, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a screenshot of a July 2025 post in which he stated Maduro’s regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela.
“Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization which has taken possession of a country,” Rubio wrote in the reshared July 2025 post. “And he [Maduro] is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States.”
Rubio’s State Department announced in November 2025 it would designate the Cartel de los Soles a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
When reached for comment, the Department of War referred the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) to the White House’s communications. The White House did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Neither the DOJ nor the State Department immediately responded to requests for additional comment from the DCNF.
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