FILE PHOTO: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro talks to the media next to his wife Cilia Flores after taking part in a voting drill, ahead of May 20 presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela May 6, 2018.
REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, allegedly captured by American forces during President Trump’s ordered air assault on the South American nation early Saturday morning, will be prosecuted on a grand jury indictment handed down in Manhattan, according to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Maduro, the socialist president who had led Venezuela with an iron fist since 2013, and his wife, Cilia Flores, were apprehended as they attempted to fly out of the country, Trump claimed on Jan. 3. He had ordered air strikes on military installations inside Venezuela amid growing tensions between both nations; the Trump administration had accused Maduro of running Venezuela as a “narco-state,” serving as a pipeline for illegal drugs and gang activity.
Trump told Fox News that Maduro and Flores were apprehended by special operations forces and flown to the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship stationed in the Caribbean. Maduro will eventually be transferred to New York to await trial on a federal indictment in the Southern District of New York, according to Trump.
A U.S. Air Force HC-130J aircraft overflies the former Roosevelt Roads naval base before landing, after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. has struck Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, January 3, 2026. REUTERS/Eva Marie Uzcategui
Trump stated that the operation was conducted jointly by the U.S. military and law enforcement partners, although the exact legal authority for the U.S. to carry out the strikes was not immediately clear. Congress is typically notified by the president of military action; the legislature has the sole authority to declare war on a foreign power.
Ahead of Saturday’s operation, the U.S. military, upon the orders of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, had repeatedly struck vessels off the Venezuelan coast that they allege were involved in narcotics operations; at least 110 people were killed in those strikes. Trump had also ordered a blockade of Venezuelan oil shipments, which under international law is considered an act of war, and had seized at least one oil carrier.
Bondi said Maduro and Flores would “face the full wrath of American justice on American soil” and be prosecuted on various charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States, according to The Hill.
As for Venezuela, it is unclear who is running the country with Maduro now in American custody. Maduro had publicly denied Trump’s accusations of narco-terrorism, alleging that the U.S. only sought regime change in Venezuela to gain control of the nation’s vast oil supply.
The military operation also prompted great concern among neighboring nations in South America and the Caribbean.