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The indictment describes a pattern of corruption that followed Maduro through every office he held. As a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, he allegedly moved cocaine under the protection of law enforcement.
As foreign minister, prosecutors say he sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to known traffickers and used diplomatic cover to shield private planes ferrying drug money from Mexico back to Venezuela.
As president, the indictment alleges, Maduro allowed cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, the benefit of his ruling clique, and the benefit of his family.
At the center of the case is what prosecutors describe as an illegitimate government that weaponized state power to protect and promote drug trafficking. The indictment names senior regime figures, including Diosdado Cabello Rondón and Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, as co-conspirators who enriched themselves and entrenched their political power through cocaine profits.
Prosecutors allege Maduro and his allies partnered with some of the most violent criminal organizations in the world, including Colombia’s FARC and ELN, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas, and Venezuela’s own Tren de Aragua.
These alliances allegedly ensured cocaine production, protection, and transport from Colombia through Venezuela, across the Caribbean and Central America, and ultimately into the United States.
The indictment details a sophisticated logistics network. By 2020, the U.S. State Department estimated that 200 to 250 tons of cocaine moved through Venezuela each year. Shipments traveled by go-fast boats, fishing vessels, container ships, and aircraft departing from clandestine dirt airstrips and even commercial airports controlled by corrupt officials. Along the route, traffickers paid off politicians and security forces in transshipment countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico to guarantee safe passage.
The case also places Maduro’s family at the heart of the operation. Prosecutors allege that Flores de Maduro accepted bribes to broker protection for traffickers and that other family members, including Maduro’s son, benefited from the cocaine trade.
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