US raises bounty on Venezuela’s President Maduro to $50m
US government has increased its reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to $50 million, doubling the previous bounty of $25 million.
“Today, the Department of Justice and the State Department are announcing a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video statement shared on social media. “He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security.”
Maduro, whose 2024 re-election has not been recognized by Washington, was first indicted in 2020 under former President Donald Trump’s administration. The federal charges, filed in New York, accuse him and several senior Venezuelan officials of being involved in a large-scale “narco-terrorism” operation.
According to the Justice Department, Maduro leads a drug trafficking organization known as “The Cartel of the Suns”, which allegedly trafficked hundreds of tons of cocaine into the U.S. over two decades in collaboration with Colombia’s FARC rebel group, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Attorney General Bondi also claimed Maduro has ties to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel and Venezuela’s criminal gang Tren de Aragua. She added that the DEA had seized 30 tonnes of cocaine connected to Maduro and his associates, with nearly 7 tonnes directly linked to him.
Since September last year, the U.S. government has confiscated over $700 million in assets tied to Maduro, including two aircraft owned by the Venezuelan government.
“Maduro’s reign of terror continues,” Bondi said. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”
The U.S. State Department has labelled the 62-year-old Maduro—a former bus driver and union leader—as one of the world’s top narco-traffickers. If extradited and convicted, he faces a possible life sentence.
Maduro has previously dismissed the accusations as “spurious and false”.
In a related development, former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Armando Carvajal pleaded guilty in June to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the U.S. According to sources cited by the Miami Herald, Carvajal has agreed to provide documents and testimony implicating Maduro.
