{"id":88393,"date":"2026-01-03T22:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/88393\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:55:17","slug":"captured-venezuelan-leader-nicolas-maduro-lands-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/88393\/","title":{"rendered":"Captured Venezuelan Leader Nicolas Maduro Lands in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">A plane carrying Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s\u00a0Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, arrived in New York state on Saturday evening, according to the Associated Press. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">The plane landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, about 70 miles from New York City, around 5 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n<p>Why It Matters <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">In an early Saturday morning operation, the U.S. struck Caracas and captured Maduro and his wife at Trump&#8217;s direction. In an image shared by Trump on Truth Social earlier today, Maduro was seen blindfolded, handcuffed, holding a water bottle and wearing a grey Nike sweatsuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Maduro, his wife, and his son have been formally indicted in the Southern District of New York, including on charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said. Maduro had previously been\u00a0indicted in March 2020 on &#8220;narco-terrorism&#8221; conspiracy charges in the same district, and in August 2025, the U.S. doubled its bounty to $50 million for information leading to his arrest. Maduro has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">New York City leaders said they were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/mamdani-ny-leaders-react-to-maduro-facing-prosecution-11303124\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">aware <\/a>of the Trump administration&#8217;s operation and plans to bring Maduro to the city.<\/p>\n<p>What To Know <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Images shared by CNN show the plane landing at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Orange County, New York. Videos published by several outlets show multiple people deboarding the aircraft in the dark.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Earlier on Saturday, Bondi said Maduro and his wife face charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation conspiracy. The indictment also includes charges related to the\u00a0possession of machineguns and destructive devices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Maduro is expected to face the drugs, weapons, and conspiracy charges in federal court in Manhattan early next week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">This is a breaking news story. Updates will follow. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Updated 1\/3\/2026, 5:48 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.<\/p>\n<p><img id=\"11303683\" alt=\"\" caption=\"NEWBURGH, NEW YORK - JANUARY 03: A Department of Defense aircraft arrives with Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores at Stewart Air National Guard Base on January 3, 2026 in Newburgh, NY, New York. President Trump confirmed in a news conference that the U.S. military carried out a large-scale strike in Caracas overnight resulting in their capture. (Photo by Kena Betancur\/Getty Images)\" captionoverride=\"A Department of Defense aircraft arrives with Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores at Stewart Air National Guard Base on January 3, 2026 in Newburgh, NY, New York. (Photo by Kena Betancur\/Getty Images)\" credit=\"\" sourcealt=\"\" sources=\"[]\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"4245\" height=\"2830\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;aspect-ratio:inherit;object-fit:cover\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2254523374.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plane carrying Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s\u00a0Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, arrived in New York state on Saturday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4022,153,661,9,24,55,54,56,655,7318],"class_list":{"0":"post-88393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-military","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-trump-administration","17":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88393","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=88393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}