According to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been indicted in the Southern District of New York.
Bondi, in a post on her Twitter account, announced that Maduro was accused of narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
She asserted that he would soon face the wrath of U.S. justice on American soil and in American courts.
“On behalf of the entire U.S. Department of Justice, I want to thank President Trump for his courage in demanding accountability on behalf of the American people, and a huge thank you to our courageous armed forces who carried out the incredible and successful mission of capturing these two alleged international drug traffickers,” Bondi said.
Last July, the Trump administration launched a crackdown on drug cartels, particularly the Cartel of the Suns, a criminal organization allegedly led by Maduro and with ties to one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels: the Sinaloa Cartel.
On July 25, the U.S. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs designated the Cartel of the Suns as a global terrorist organization.
The cartel’s name comes from the sun insignia that appear on the uniforms of Venezuelan military officers.
According to U.S. agencies, Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials corrupted Venezuelan government institutions, including the military, to facilitate the cartel’s drug trafficking operations into the United States.
The Cartel of the Suns and the Sinaloa Cartel, according to the U.S.
According to the United States, the Cartel of the Suns, from Venezuela, provided support to the Tren de Aragua, another Venezuelan criminal group, as well as to the Sinaloa Cartel, from Mexico, in transporting illegal narcotics into the United States.
Furthermore, the Venezuelan organization allegedly assisted, sponsored, and provided financial support, technological equipment, goods, or services to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Tren de Aragua.
The Sinaloa Cartel is one of the most powerful Mexican criminal organizations. It experienced an economic boom through the production and sale of fentanyl in the United States, an empire it built from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, before the power struggle that ensued after the arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
Therefore, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against the Cartel of the Suns for activities related to drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, sexual exploitation of women and children, and money laundering.
This measure means that all property and interests of the designated individuals that are in the United States, or in the possession or control of U.S. citizens, are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In this case, the sanction targeted Nicolás Maduro, identified as the alleged leader of the criminal organization.
Furthermore, it was announced that all entities whose direct or indirect ownership, whether individual or collective, is 50% or more owned by sanctioned individuals would be blocked.
Source: infobae
