{"id":326764,"date":"2025-08-08T02:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T02:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326764\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T02:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T02:36:10","slug":"us-offers-50m-reward-for-arrest-of-venezuelas-nicolas-maduro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326764\/","title":{"rendered":"US offers $50m reward for arrest of Venezuela’s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to $50m (\u00a337.2m), accusing him of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world”.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump is a long-time critic of Maduro, who returned to office in January following an election marred by vote-rigging allegations. The results were widely rejected by the international community.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the US would double its already announced reward of $25m (\u00a318.6m)<\/a>, and said Maduro was directly linked to drug smuggling operations.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the new reward was “pathetic” and labelled it “political propaganda”. <\/p>\n

“We’re not surprised, coming from whom it comes from,” Gil said, accusing Bondi of attempting a “desperate distraction” from headlines related to backlash over the handling of the case<\/a> of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

During Trump’s first term, the US government charged Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials with a range of offences, including narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking. <\/p>\n

At the time, the US Department of Justice claimed Maduro had worked with the Colombian rebel group Farc to “use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States”.<\/p>\n

In a video posted on X on Thursday, Bondi accused Maduro of coordinating with groups like Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has declared a terrorist organisation – and the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful criminal network based in Mexico.<\/p>\n

She claimed the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had “seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself”.<\/p>\n

Maduro has previously rejected US claims he has direct involvement in drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

Bondi’s comments are an extension of long-running tensions between the US and Venezuelan government – but the attorney general did not provide any further indication over how the government envisioned the renewed appeal and cash incentive would yield results.<\/p>\n

Maduro – who is leader of the United Socialist Party and succeeded Hugo Chavez in 2013 – has been repeatedly accused of repressing opposition groups and silencing dissent in Venezuela, including with the use of violence.<\/p>\n

He weathered protests in the wake of last year’s contested election and has retained his grip on power.<\/p>\n

But in June, Hugo Carvajal – formerly the head of Venezuela’s military intelligence – was convicted of several drug trafficking charges<\/a> after being arrested in Madrid and put on trial in the US.<\/p>\n

Carvajal had been a feared spymaster who went by the name El Pollo, or The Chicken, but fled Venezuela after calling on the army to back an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro.<\/p>\n

He initially denied the drug charges but later changed his plea to guilty, fuelling speculation he had cut a deal with US authorities for a lesser sentence in exchange for incriminating information about Maduro.<\/p>\n

The UK and EU announced sanctions against Maduro’s government following his return to office earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-326764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114990821164088904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}