Pamela Bondi, the United States Attorney General, has announced that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been formally indicted in the Southern District of New York.
According to the Department of Justice, Maduro faces a sweeping set of federal 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.
The indictments mark one of the most far-reaching criminal cases ever brought by US prosecutors against a sitting foreign head of state.
Attorney General Bondi said the defendants would soon face trial in the United States, declaring that they would be subject to “the full wrath of American justice on American soil, in American courts.”
Speaking on behalf of the United States Department of Justice, Bondi praised Donald Trump for what she described as his determination to demand accountability on behalf of the American people. She also commended US military personnel involved in the operation that led to the capture of Maduro and Flores, describing the mission as “incredible” and “highly successful.”
The indictments reinforce Washington’s long-standing position that the Maduro government operates as a criminal enterprise linked to international drug trafficking networks, rather than as a conventional sovereign administration. US officials have repeatedly accused Maduro of leveraging state power to facilitate narcotics flows into North America while using armed groups and security forces to shield those activities from accountability.
Legal analysts note that prosecution in the Southern District of New York—often reserved for the most complex transnational crime, terrorism, and organised-crime cases—signals the seriousness with which US authorities intend to pursue the matter. If brought before the court, the case would represent a rare instance of a sitting or recently deposed head of state standing trial in the US criminal justice system on terrorism-related charges.