{"id":675327,"date":"2026-01-05T11:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/675327\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T11:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:52:10","slug":"nicolas-maduro-to-appear-in-new-york-court-on-drugs-and-weapons-charges-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/675327\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to appear in New York court on drugs and weapons charges | New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deposed Venezuelan<\/a> president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Monday afternoon on drugs and weapons charges after his controversial<\/a> capture<\/a> by US Special Forces this weekend.<\/p>\n

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were seized in a shocking pre-dawn raid at a compound on Saturday during an assault on Caracas<\/a>. At least 40 people, including civilians and Venezuelan military members, died in the attack, the New York Times<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Charging papers against Maduro allege that he helmed a \u201ccorrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking\u201d.<\/p>\n

The arrests came after months<\/a> of US pressure<\/a> against Maduro, which included attacks on alleged \u201cnarco boats\u201d. These boat strikes resulted in at least 110 deaths and some legal experts have questioned whether the strikes are tantamount to war crimes.<\/p>\n

In the weeks leading up to this attack, the US also<\/a> seized<\/a> sanctioned oil tankers off Venezuela\u2019s coast. Donald Trump<\/a> established a blockade against other such vessels, further constraining the oil-rich nation\u2019s already flagging economy.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s son and three others are also charged in the indictment. Maduro, who was indicted during Trump\u2019s first presidency, faces charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.<\/p>\n

Trump, who previously vowed to avoid foreign wars, said<\/a> that the US will control Venezuela for the time being. \u201cWe will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,\u201d Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela<\/a> who doesn\u2019t have the interests of Venezuelans in mind,\u201d he also told reporters, describing the military action as \u201can assault like people have not seen since world war two\u201d.<\/p>\n

Top Democrats condemned Trump\u2019s attack on Venezuela, calling it illegal<\/a> and contrary to US interests. The US constitution mandates that only Congress has the power to declare war. Presidents must seek approval for military operations from Congress under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey literally lied to our face,\u201d Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Murphy said on Sunday. He was referencing a briefing on Venezuela given to Congress by secretary of state Marco Rubio in December. \u201cThe message they sent was that this wasn\u2019t about regime change \u2026 They said this is just a counter-narcotics operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also told reporters that the US would take control over Venezuela\u2019s oil industry<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s plans for administering Venezuela are unclear. American forces do not control Venezuela, and Maduro\u2019s government still seems to be running the country.<\/p>\n

Trump has claimed the US would control Venezuela \u201cwith a group\u201d and is \u201cdesignating various people\u201d for leadership roles. The US president also commented that he wasn\u2019t opposed to deploying ground forces there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to \u2026 We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually. We\u2019re not afraid of it. We don\u2019t mind saying it but we\u2019re going to make sure that country is run properly. We\u2019re not doing this in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deposed Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Monday afternoon on drugs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-675327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115842354429734640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675327","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=675327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}