US Announces Narcoterrorism Charges Against Venezuela’s Maduro – By Masood Farivar (VOA News) / March 26 2020
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced narcoterrorism charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other top officials, accusing them of collaborating with a leftist Colombian guerrilla group to traffic cocaine to the United States.
The charges are likely to heighten tensions between the United States and Venezuela. Relations deteriorated last year after the Trump administration recognized Maduro’s electoral rival as the country’s interim president and later imposed sweeping economic sanctions designed to remove Maduro from office.
In a sweeping indictment unsealed in New York, prosecutors accused Maduro of running a drug cartel in partnership with two Colombian guerrilla leaders and several top Venezuelan officials, including the speaker of Venezuela’s national assembly; a former director of military intelligence; and a former general in the Venezuelan armed forces.
The four men face charges of participating in a narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and two weapons-related charges.
In a separate indictment and criminal complaint, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine on board an aircraft registered in the United States, while Supreme Court Chief Justice Maikel Jose Moreno Perez was accused of money laundering in connection with receiving tens of millions of dollars and bribes to fix dozens of civil and criminal cases in Venezuela.
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