The United States on Thursday (August 7, 2025) doubled its bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — who faces federal drug trafficking charges and whose most up-to-date election victory was not acknowledged by Washington — to $50 million.
“Today, the Department of Justice and State Department are announcing a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro,” Attorney General Pam Bondi stated in a video on social media.
“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security.”
The earlier bounty was set in January at $25 million.
In 2020, throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period in workplace, Mr. Maduro and different high-ranking Venezuelan officers have been indicted in federal courtroom in New York on a number of charges together with collaborating in a “narco-terrorism” conspiracy.
The Justice Department accused Mr. Maduro of main a cocaine trafficking gang referred to as “The Cartel of the Suns” that shipped tons of of tons of narcotics into the United States over 20 years, incomes tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
Investigators say the cartel labored hand-in-hand with the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the United States has labeled a terrorist group.
Ms. Bondi stated Mr. Maduro additionally had labored with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself,” Ms. Bondi stated.
The U.S. authorities has seized greater than $700 million in Maduro-linked property, in accordance to Ms. Bondi, together with two Venezuelan authorities plane since September final yr.
“Yet Maduro’s reign of terror continues,” she stated. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”
The 62-year-old Maduro, a former bus driver and commerce unionist, faces up to life in jail if he will be tried and is convicted.
At the time of the indictment, Mr. Maduro slammed what he referred to as “spurious, false” accusations.
In June, Venezuela’s former intelligence chief Hugo Armando Carvajal pleaded responsible to U.S. drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges.
The Miami Herald, citing sources acquainted with the case, stated Carvajal had provided to present U.S. authorities with paperwork and testimony implicating Mr. Maduro.
Relations between Washington and Caracas have been deteriorating for years.
The U.S. authorities has not acknowledged Mr. Maduro, who first took workplace in 2013, because the duly elected president of Venezuela since what the State Department has referred to as a “deeply flawed 2018 presidential election.”
“In the July 28, 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, Mr. Maduro fraudulently declared himself the victor despite evidence to the contrary,” the State Department stated in an announcement of the sooner bounty in January.
“The United States joined many other countries in refusing to recognize Maduro as the legitimate winner of the July 2024 presidential election.”
Washington has positioned an array of financial sanctions on Maduro’s authorities.
