{"id":330454,"date":"2025-08-09T11:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T11:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330454\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T11:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T11:46:12","slug":"us-raises-bounty-on-venezuelan-president-maduro-to-50m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330454\/","title":{"rendered":"US raises bounty on Venezuelan president Maduro to $50m"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States has doubled its bounty on Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro – who faces federal drug trafficking charges and whose election victory was not recognised by Washington – to $50m.<\/p>\n

“Today, the Department of Justice and State Department are announcing a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video on social media.<\/p>\n

“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security.”<\/p>\n

The previous bounty was set in January at $25m.<\/p>\n

In 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, Mr Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials were indicted in federal court in New York on several charges including participating in a “narco-terrorism” conspiracy.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department accused Mr Maduro of leading a cocaine trafficking gang called ‘The Cartel of the Suns’ that shipped hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades, earning hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Investigators say the cartel worked hand-in-hand with the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the United States has labelled a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

Ms Bondi said Mr Maduro also had worked with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.<\/p>\n

Read more:
Protests in Venezuela against Maduro re-election<\/a>
EU joins refusal to recognise Maduro as Venezuela vote winner<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself”, Ms Bondi said.<\/p>\n

The US government has seized more than $700m in Maduro-linked assets, according to Ms Bondi, including two Venezuelan government aircraft since September last year.<\/p>\n

“Yet Maduro’s reign of terror continues,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”<\/p>\n

\"President
\nThe US State Department labelled Nicol\u00e1s Maduro as one of the world’s ‘largest narco-traffickers’<\/p>\n

Mr Maduro, 62, a former bus driver and trade unionist, faces up to life in prison if he can be tried and is convicted.<\/p>\n

At the time of the indictment, Mr Maduro slammed what he called “spurious, false” accusations.<\/p>\n

In June, Venezuela’s former intelligence chief Hugo Armando Carvajal pleaded guilty to US drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges.<\/p>\n

The Miami Herald, citing sources familiar with the case, said Mr Carvajal had offered to provide US authorities with documents and testimony implicating Mr Maduro.<\/p>\n

Relations between Washington and Caracas have been deteriorating for years.<\/p>\n

The US government has not recognized Mr Maduro, who first took office in 2013, as the duly elected president of Venezuela since what the State Department has called a “deeply flawed 2018 presidential election”.<\/p>\n

“In the July 28, 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, Maduro fraudulently declared himself the victor despite evidence to the contrary,” the State Department said on the earlier bounty in January.<\/p>\n

“The United States joined many other countries in refusing to recognise Maduro as the legitimate winner of the July 2024 presidential election.”<\/p>\n

Washington has placed an array of economic sanctions on Mr Maduro’s government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States has doubled its bounty on Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro – who faces federal drug trafficking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-330454","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\/114998646116942856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330454","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=330454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}