The United States has doubled the reward for information leading to the arrest of President Venezuean Nicolás Maduro at $ 50 million, accusing him to be “one of the largest drug dealers in the world.”
Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela Photo: Profimedia
Prosecutor General Pam Bondi said the US will double the reward for $ 25 million and said that Maduro is directly involved in drug trafficking operations.
Venezuela's foreign minister, Yvan Gil, qualified the new reward “pathetic ” and labeled it as “Political propaganda ”, According to the BBC.
“We are not surprised, considering who comes from,” Gil said, accusing Bondi of trying to “distract attention ”” from the press titles related to the negative reactions on how the case of the sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein was managed.
During Trump's first term, the US government accused Maduro and other High Venezuelan officials of a series of crimes, including narcoterrorism, corruption and drug trafficking.
At that time, the US Justice Department claimed that Maduro collaborated with the Colombian Rebel Group Farc to “Use cocaine as a weapon to “flood” the United States. “
In a video posted on Thursday on X, Bondi accused Maduro of coordinating the actions of groups like Aragua train-a Venezuelan tape that the Trump administration has declared a terrorist organization-and the Sinaloa Cartel, a strong criminal network based in Mexico.
She said that the US Anti -Drug Agency (DEA) “confiscated 30 tons of cocaine related to marrow and its associates, of which almost seven tons were related to Maduro itself.”
Maduro previously rejected US accusations that they would be directly involved in drug trafficking.
Bondi's comments are a continuation of the long -term tensions between the US and the Venezuelan government, but the Attorney General has not provided other indications on how the government considers that the new call and the financial incentive will give results.
Maduro, the leader of the United Socialist Party and the successor of Hugo Chavez in 2013, has been repeatedly accused of suppressing the opposition groups and of silent reduction of the dissidents in Venezuela, including by using violence.
He resisted the protests that followed the elections challenged last year and kept his power.
However, in June, Hugo Carvajal, the former head of Venezuela secret military secret services, was convicted for several drug trafficking charges, after being arrested in Madrid and tried in the US.
Carvajal was a head of the feared secret services, known as El Pollo, or the chicken, but fled Venezuela after asking the army to support an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro.
Initially, he denied the charges of drug trafficking, but later changed his plea in the culprit, fueling the speculations that he had concluded an agreement with the American authorities for an easier punishment in exchange for incriminating information about Maduro.
The UK and the EU announced sanctions against the Maduro government after returning to power earlier this year.
