Nicolas Maduro has been found guilty of drug trafficking and terrorism in the US | Credit: StringerAL/Shutterstock
Indicted in 2020 on US federal charges of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, the Trump Administration doubled the bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday, August 8th, several news outlets reported.
The United States accuses Maduro of being one of the world’s largest drug traffickers and of working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said on Thursday in a video statement announcing the reward.
Bondi said, “Maduro uses foreign terrorist organisations like TdA … to bring deadly violence to our country … He is one of the largest narcotraffickers in the world and a threat to our national security.”
Maduro was indicted in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, along with several close allies, on federal charges of drug-trafficking-related terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, according to the Guardian.
Initially, the US offered a $15 million reward for his arrest. With Joe Biden as president, the bounty was raised to $25 million, the same reward offered for Osama bin Laden in 2001, after the September 11 attacks.
‘We’re not surprised’ by this ‘desperate distraction’
Maduro shrugs off the bounty. He never leaves Venezuela, where he has remained the most powerful figure in the country for over a decade. In 2024, the European Union and several Latin American governments condemned Maduro‘s reelection as a sham.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the new reward was “pathetic” and labelled it “political propaganda”.
“We’re not surprised, coming from whom it comes from,” Gil said, accusing Bondi of attempting a “desperate distraction” from headlines related to backlash over the handling of the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
