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  "description": "When Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was seized by the United States military on Saturday morning, it was for the stated intent of bringing him to trial on narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation charges on a case that was originally filed on March 8, 2011.",
  "path": "/see-the-maduro-indictments/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-01-04T14:55:48.000Z",
  "site": "https://ielaw.news",
  "textContent": "When Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was seized by the United States military on Saturday morning, it was for the stated intent of bringing him to trial on narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation charges on a case that was originally filed on March 8, 2011.\n\nThe majority of documents for the case have been sealed. The first public record for the case, a superseding indictment, was not filed until March 5, 2020.\n\n### 2020 indictment\n\nThe 2020 indictment filed in the Southern District of New York accused Maduro and five other alleged cartel members of narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. The indictment charged them with a conspiracy between the Cartel de Los Soles and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).\n\nThe Cartel de Los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, is identified as a drug-trafficking organization made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials who corrupted the Venezuelan government into exporting cocaine into the United States. The name was a reference to the sun insignias worn by Venezuelan generals.\n\nTwo of the defendants, Luciano Marin Arango and Seuxis Paucis Hernandez Solarte, were accused of leading the FARC. The other defendants were then-President of the National Assembly and current Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, Diosdado Cabello Rondon; military intelligence head Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios and former general Cliver Antonio Alcala Cordones. The 2020 indictment named Carvajal Barrios as wanted on the original drug trafficking charge filed in the Southern District of New York in 2011.\n\n\"Under the leadership of Maduro Moros and others, the Cártel 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. Thus, whereas most drug-trafficking organizations in South and Central America have sought to recede from their roles in importing narcotics into the United States in an effort to avoid U.S. prosecution, the Cártel de Los Soles, under the leadership of Maduro Moros and others, prioritized using cocaine as a weapon against America and importing as much cocaine as possible into the United States,\" the indictment says.\n\nThe complaint alleges that Maduro received $5 million in drug proceeds in 2006, when he was Venezuela's foreign minister. In 2008, Maduro agreed to keep the border between Venezuela and Colombia open to help drug trafficking, it says. The indictment said Maduro, after he became president of Venezuela, sent 1.3 tons of cocaine on a commercial flight to Paris in 2013. The shipment was seized in France. He also, the indictment alleges, sent drug proceeds to the FARC, used Venezuela's military power to free Barrios from Aruban arrest, dispatched cocaine from his presidential hangar, and directed Venezuelan resources to traffic cocaine.\n\n### Dec. 23 indictment\n\nThe government filed a new sealed indictment on Dec. 23. It became public on Jan. 3.\n\nThe new document removed many of the original defendants, and replaced them with Maduro's family. Cabello Rondon, the minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, remains a defendant. Alcala Cordones, Marin Arango and Hernandez Solarte were removed. Carvajal Barrios, who the case was originally filed against, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to the charges, the indictment says.\n\nInstead, former Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin; Maduro's wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro; and Maduro's sons, politician Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerra and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, were charged. The indictment charges Hector Guerrero with leading Tren de Agua.\n\n\"For over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States. Nicolas Maduro Moros, the defendant, is at the forefront of that corruption and has partnered with his co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority and the institutions he corroded to transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States. Since his early days in Venezuelan government, Maduro Moros has tarnished every public office he has held. As a member of Venezuela's National Assembly, Maduro Moros moved loads of cocaine under the protection of Venezuelan law enforcement. As Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maduro Moros provided Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and facilitated diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela. As Venezuela's President and now-de facto ruler, Maduro Moros allows cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,\" the new indictment says.\n\nThe indictment says that Maduro, as minister of foreign affairs in the 2000's, sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and provided diplomatic cover to planes used by traffickers. In 2007, Flores de Maduro, his wife, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to introduce a trafficker with the director of Venezuela's anti-drug officer, it claims. His sons personally delivered and received cocaine shipments, the indictment says.\n\nMaduro and Flores de Maduro are both",
  "title": "See the Maduro indictments",
  "updatedAt": "2026-01-04T14:55:49.148Z"
}