Nicolás Maduro, until recently Venezuela’s president, is scheduled to make his first appearance alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, in a U.S. courtroom Monday afternoon, where they will be formally notified of the federal charges against them, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons offenses.
The noon hearing before U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Manhattan will set the stage for what is expected to be a legal battle over whether American courts have the authority to prosecute a foreign head of state.
Defense attorneys are expected to challenge the entire premise of the prosecution, arguing that Maduro retains immunity as a head of state. The U.S. government, however, has long refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president, which prosecutors are likely to cite as they defend their right to bring him to trial.
The legal proceedings follow the Saturday, January 3, military operation in which U.S. special forces raided Maduro’s fortified compound in Caracas, extracted him and his wife under fire, and transported them to the Brooklyn, New York, Metropolitan Detention Center within hours. Approved by President Donald Trump before Christmas, it was the outcome of decades of U.S. efforts to hold Maduro accountable for what prosecutors describe as a 25-year conspiracy to flood American streets with cocaine while partnering with some of the world’s most violent terrorist organizations and drug cartels.
The superseding indictment, unsealed following their capture, alleges the couple helped traffic thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States between 1999 and 2025 while enriching themselves and providing support to designated terrorist organizations including the FARC, Sinaloa Cartel, and the violent transnational gang Tren de Aragua.
Operation Absolute Resolve
The operation began at approximately 2 a.m. local time Saturday, with around 150 U.S. aircraft – bombers, fighters, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance – flying over the capital of Caracas. The primary target was Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, where Maduro and Flores resided within a heavily fortified compound.
Trump, watching “Operation Absolute Resolve” unfold from Mar-a-Lago, told Fox News that the operation lasted less than 30 minutes, with U.S. forces breaching steel doors to reach Maduro before he could escape to a safe room.
Cuba reported that 32 Cuban nationals were killed during combat actions, prompting the communist-led government to declare January 5-6 as days of national mourning. Venezuelan authorities acknowledged casualties but have not released specific numbers. Families in La Guaira state, near the capital, reported homes damaged by blasts during the operation.
Months of Planning, One Final Phone Call
The operation was the culmination of months of meticulous planning. CIA operatives had infiltrated Venezuela, tracking Maduro’s movements, eating habits, and security patterns. U.S. forces trained on a mock-up of Maduro’s compound. The USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s most advanced aircraft carrier, deployed to the Caribbean in September 2025 as part of a military buildup that included strikes on drug-smuggling vessels.
But before giving the final order, Trump made one last attempt at a peaceful resolution. In a phone call approximately one week before the operation, Trump told Maduro he had to surrender.
“You got to surrender,” Trump recalled telling the Venezuelan leader at a Saturday news conference at Mar-a-Lago. Maduro “came close” to accepting the offer, Trump said, but ultimately decided to stay in power.
That gamble cost him his freedom. After the capture, Maduro was photographed aboard the USS Iwo Jima in handcuffs and a blindfold, wearing a sweatsuit. By 4:30 p.m. Saturday, he was on U.S. soil, arriving at Stewart Airport north of New York City, where dozens of law enforcement officers escorted him and his wife to a waiting vehicle.
Two Decades of Corruption
The superseding indictment (replacing/updating the original 2020 indictment) unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York outlines systematic corruption stretching back more than two decades. Prosecutors allege that Maduro and his co-conspirators turned Venezuela into a narco-state, partnering with terrorist organizations and cartels to move an estimated 200 to 250 tons of cocaine annually through the country by 2020.
Six defendants are named in the 39-page indictment:
Nicolás Maduro Moros, 62, Venezuela’s president since 2013 and the alleged architect of the conspiracy. The indictment traces his involvement back to his time in the National Assembly (2000-2006) and as Foreign Affairs Minister (2006-2013).
Diosdado Cabello Rondón, one of Venezuela’s most powerful officials, currently serving as Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace. The indictment alleges he regularly traveled to clandestine airstrips near the Colombian border to oversee cocaine shipments.
Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, former Interior Minister, who allegedly hosted a FARC training camp with 200 armed members on his estate and facilitated meetings between FARC leaders and Maduro.
Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, 62, Maduro’s wife and Venezuela’s de facto First Lady, accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and working with her husband to traffic seized cocaine using military escorts.
Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, Maduro’s son, known as “Nicolasito” or “The Prince,” who allegedly used state oil company aircraft to transport drugs and discussed shipping cocaine to Miami and New York.
Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, leader of Tren de Aragua, the violent Venezuelan gang that has established a presence in the United States and is accused of providing armed protection for drug shipments.
The defendants face four counts: narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and two weapons charges related to the use of machineguns and destructive devices in drug trafficking operations.
A Web of Terrorist Connections
The indictment alleges unprecedented cooperation between Venezuelan officials and five designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) recently added to the State Department’s list in February 2025:
The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and its successor organizations, which prosecutors say partnered with Venezuelan officials for decades, using the country as a safe haven for cocaine production and transport. The indictment describes regular meetings between FARC leaders and Maduro at the presidential palace.
The ELN (National Liberation Army), another Colombian guerrilla group that allegedly controlled clandestine airstrips near the Venezuelan border where Cabello Rondón ensured safe passage for cocaine shipments.
The Sinaloa Cartel, the Mexican drug trafficking empire once led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, which allegedly financed cocaine laboratories in Colombia and transported drugs through Venezuela under protection from Venezuelan intelligence officials.
The Zetas/CDN, the Mexican cartel that allegedly worked with Venezuelan military officials to dispatch container ships carrying five to 20 tons of cocaine from Venezuelan ports to Mexico.
Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan prison gang turned transnational criminal organization that has expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere and established operations in U.S. cities including New York, engaging in drug trafficking, human smuggling, and violent crimes.
At the center of this web, prosecutors allege, was the “Cartel de Los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns) – named for the sun insignia on high-ranking Venezuelan military uniforms – a patronage system in which corrupt officials enriched themselves by protecting traffickers and using state resources to facilitate drug operations.
Decades of Trafficking: Diplomatic Passports and Presidential Hangars
The indictment details specific trafficking operations that illustrate the scope and audacity of the alleged conspiracy:
In 2006, while serving as Foreign Affairs Minister, Maduro allegedly sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to known drug traffickers and provided diplomatic cover for private planes carrying drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela. When traffickers needed to move money, Maduro would call the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico to announce an incoming “diplomatic mission,” prosecutors say.
That same year, Venezuelan officials allegedly loaded more than 5.5 tons of cocaine onto a DC-9 jet at the presidential hangar at Maiquetía Airport near Caracas. When Mexican authorities seized the plane in Campeche, Cabello Rondón allegedly received $2.5 million in bribes to protect those involved from arrest, according to the indictment.
In 2013, just months after Maduro assumed the presidency, Venezuelan officials dispatched approximately 1.3 tons of cocaine on a commercial flight from Caracas to Paris. After French authorities seized the drugs, Maduro allegedly convened a meeting with Cabello Rondón and intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal Barrios, who pleaded guilty to narcotics charges in June 2025, and criticized them for using the presidential airport. They should use “other well-established drug routes,” he reportedly said, before authorizing the arrest of lower-ranking officials as part of a coverup.
In 2015, two of Maduro and Flores’s relatives were recorded by DEA confidential sources discussing plans to ship hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from the “presidential hangar” at Maiquetía Airport. They described being at “war” with the United States and discussed raising $20 million in drug proceeds to support Flores’s National Assembly campaign. Both men were convicted in U.S. federal court in 2016.
Between 2014 and 2015, Maduro’s son allegedly used aircraft belonging to PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company, to transport drugs from Margarita Island. The indictment states that armed sergeants loaded packages wrapped in tape, understood to be drugs, onto the planes while the younger Maduro was present. On one occasion, he reportedly said the plane “could go wherever it wanted, including the United States.”
As recently as 2020, according to prosecutors, Maduro’s son attended a meeting in Medellín, Colombia, with FARC representatives to discuss moving large quantities of cocaine and weapons through Colombia into the United States over the following six years, with the FARC to be paid in weapons.
What Comes Next
The president issued a warning to Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, saying she needed to provide the U.S. with “total access” to the country’s oil and other resources or face consequences “probably bigger than Maduro.”
Trump claimed Rodríguez had spoken with Rubio by phone and was willing to cooperate. However, in her initial televised address Saturday, January 3, Rodríguez demanded Maduro’s release and called him Venezuela’s “rightful leader.” She described the U.S. intervention as being “without a doubt, Zionist in character,” and said what was happening to Venezuela “is an atrocity that violates international law.”
By Sunday evening, her tone shifted. “President Donald Trump: Our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war,” she said in a statement, though she made no mention of taking over the presidency or cooperating with Washington.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado called for Edmundo González, the opposition candidate who many believe won the disputed 2024 election, to assume the presidency. However, Venezuela’s Supreme Court confirmed Monday, January 5, that it had sworn in Vice President Rodríguez as acting president.
If convicted on all counts, Maduro and the other defendants face potential life sentences. The government also is seeking forfeiture of all assets derived from the alleged drug trafficking conspiracy.