{"id":88243,"date":"2026-01-03T17:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/88243\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T17:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:48:12","slug":"indictment-against-venezuela-president-nicolas-maduro-wife-unsealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/88243\/","title":{"rendered":"Indictment against Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, wife unsealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal indictment charging <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/01\/03\/trump-us-operation-captured-venezuela-president-nicolas-maduro.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro<\/a>, his wife and four other people with narco-terrorism conspiracy and other charges was unsealed and posted online by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/agpambondi\/status\/2007468832567222274?s=46&amp;t=f76SyUZ51_pjCQV8R-qDfA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a> on Saturday morning after the couple&#8217;s dramatic capture by American forces in their own country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States,&#8221; the indictment alleges.<\/p>\n<p>The indictment was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. In addition to Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the indictment also charges Maduro&#8217;s son, Nicolas Ernesto Maduoro Guerra, Diosado Cabello Rondon, Ramon Rodriguez Chachin, and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores. <a href=\"https:\/\/fm.cnbc.com\/applications\/cnbc.com\/resources\/editorialfiles\/2026\/01\/03\/maduro_indictment.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read the indictment here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nicolas Maduro Moros, the defendant, now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking,&#8221; the indictment said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That drug trafficking has enriched and entrenched Venezuela&#8217;s political and military elite, including Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace Diosado Cabello Rondon, the defendant, and former  Minister of the Interior and Justice Ramon Rodriguez Chachin, the defendant.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Guerrero was identified as the leader of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the narco-terrorism conspiracy charge, the indictment alleges four other criminal counts: cocaine importation conspiracy; possession of machine guns and destructive devices; and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RepThomasMassie\/status\/2007469970364539092?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Rep. Thomas Massie<\/a>, a Kentucky Republican, blasted the attack on Venezuela and its rationale<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If this action were constitutionally sound, the Attorney General wouldn&#8217;t be tweeting that they&#8217;ve arrested the President of a sovereign country and his wife for possessing guns in violation of a 1934 U.S. firearm law,&#8221; Massie wrote in a post on the social media site X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal indictment charging Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, his wife and four other people with narco-terrorism conspiracy and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3351,3352,35204,7022,303,11088,9,11,10,15862,2038,87,901,7318],"class_list":["post-88243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-breaking-news-politics","tag-business-news","tag-collusion","tag-corruption","tag-crime","tag-laws","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-pam-bondi","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}