It was almost six years ago – during the COVID-19 pandemic – that then-Attorney General Bill Barr called a "virtual press conference" to announce that the Justice Department was taking action against Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
"Today, I am here to talk about the former Maduro regime and its direct participation in narco-terrorism, corruption, money laundering, and drug trafficking," Barr said on March 26, 2020.
"As you will hear, the Department of Justice is announcing the unsealing of a superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of New York against four defendants, including Nicolás Maduro," said Barr.
"The indictment of Nicolás Maduro and his co-defendants alleges a conspiracy involving an extremely violent terrorist organization known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – or FARC – in an effort to flood the United States with cocaine," Barr said.
"There is an area on the border of Colombia, Norte de Santander, which is one of the primary cocaine producing areas remaining in Colombia," explained Barr. "FARC gets this cocaine over into Venezuela and then is given safe haven by the regime to fly this cocaine from an area called Zulia, near Lake Maracaibo, up into Central America. Since 2016, this air bridge has been established and has grown fivefold in just those four years. In addition, the regime is allowing these drug traffickers to take drugs by a maritime route in the Caribbean. We estimate somewhere between 200 and 250 metric tons of cocaine are shipped out of Venezuela by these routes per year.
"Those 250 tons," said Barr, "equate to 30 million lethal doses."
The indictment filed in 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleged: "From at least in or about 1999, up to and including in or about 2020, NICOLÁS MADURO MOROS ... participated in a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy between the Venezuelan Cartel de Los Soles and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia ('FARC')."
"From at least in or about 1999, up to and including in or about 2020, the Cartel de Los Soles, or 'Cartel of the Suns,' was a Venezuelan drug-trafficking organization comprised of high-ranking Venezuelan officials who abused the Venezuelan people and corrupted the legitimate institutions of Venezuela -- including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary -- to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States," said the indictment.
"Under the leadership of Maduro Moros and others, the Cartel de Los Soles sought not only to enrich its members and enhance their power, but also to 'flood' the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug's harmful and addictive effects on users in this country," it alleged.
In 2020, the State Department offered a reward "of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Maduro."
Eight months after Barr's Justice Department filed its indictment against Maduro, Joe Biden was elected president of the United States.
On Jan. 10, 2025, ten days before Donald Trump would be sworn into a second term, Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement condemning Maduro for fraudulently taking a third term as Venezuela's president.
"Today, Nicolás Maduro held an illegitimate presidential inauguration in Venezuela in a desperate attempt to seize power," said Blinken. "The Venezuelan people and the world know the truth -- Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency. The United States rejects the National Electoral Council's fraudulent announcement that Maduro won the presidential election and does not recognize Maduro as the president of Venezuela."
Blinken then announced that the Biden administration was increasing the reward being offered for Maduro.
"In solidarity with the Venezuelan people, the U.S. government and our partners around the world are taking action today," said Blinken. "The Department of State is increasing the reward offers to up to $25 million each for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions of Nicolás Maduro and Maduro's Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello. The Department of State is also adding a new reward offer of up to $15 million for Maduro's Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López.
"These three reward offers," said Blinken, "stem from criminal narcotrafficking indictments announced in March 2020."
Last August, the Trump State Department increased the reward for "information leading to the arrest and/or conviction" of Maduro to $50 million.
What impact has cocaine trafficking had on the United States in recent years? "The number of overdose deaths involving cocaine increased from 4,681 in 2011 to 29,449 in 2023," said the Aug. 28 edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In just a dozen years, the United States saw a sixfold increase in fatal cocaine overdoses.
According to annual data published by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the United States experienced a total of 172,960 overdose deaths from cocaine from 2013 – the year Maduro became the president of Venezuela – through 2023. That is almost three times the 58,220 military fatalities that, according to the National Archives, the United States suffered in the Vietnam War.
U.S. military forces last Saturday did not suffer any casualties while successfully carrying out an operation to capture Maduro and return him to the United States to stand trial.
That same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi released an updated indictment of Maduro that included his wife.
"Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York," Bondi said in a posting on X. "Nicolás Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.
"They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," she said.
The United States does not need to occupy Venezuela or try to create a free democracy there. But Maduro deserves to stand trial in this country for the horrendous crimes he has allegedly committed.
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