{"id":12412,"date":"2025-08-08T10:11:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T10:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=12412"},"modified":"2025-08-08T10:11:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T10:11:27","slug":"us-offers-50m-reward-for-arrest-of-venezuelan-leader-nicolas-maduro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=12412","title":{"rendered":"US offers $50m reward for arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to $50m (\u00a337.2m), accusing him of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world”.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump is a long-time critic of Maduro, who returned to office in January following an election marred by vote-rigging allegations. The results were widely rejected by the international community.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the US would double its already announced reward of\u00a0$25m (\u00a318.6m)<\/a>, and said Maduro was directly linked to drug smuggling operations.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the new reward was “pathetic” and labelled it “political propaganda”<\/p>\n

“We’re not surprised, coming from whom it comes from,” Gil said, accusing Bondi of attempting a “desperate distraction” from headlines related to\u00a0backlash over the handling of the case<\/a>\u00a0of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

During Trump’s first term, the US government charged Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials with a range of offences, including narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

At the time, the US Department of Justice claimed Maduro had worked with the Colombian rebel group Farc to “use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States”.<\/p>\n

In a video posted on X on Thursday, Bondi accused Maduro of coordinating with groups like Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has declared a terrorist organisation – and the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful criminal network based in Mexico.<\/p>\n

She claimed the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had “seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself”.<\/p>\n

Maduro has previously rejected US claims he has direct involvement in drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

Bondi’s comments are an extension of long-running tensions between the US and Venezuelan government – but the attorney general did not provide any further indication over how the government envisioned the renewed appeal and cash incentive would yield results.<\/p>\n

Maduro – who is leader of the United Socialist Party and succeeded Hugo Chavez in 2013 – has been repeatedly accused of repressing opposition groups and silencing dissent in Venezuela, including with the use of violence.<\/p>\n

He weathered protests in the wake of last year’s contested election and has retained his grip on power.<\/p>\n

But in June, Hugo Carvajal – formerly the head of Venezuela’s military intelligence – was\u00a0convicted of several drug trafficking charges<\/a>\u00a0after being arrested in Madrid and put on trial in the US.<\/p>\n

Carvajal had been a feared spymaster who went by the name El Pollo, or The Chicken, but fled Venezuela after calling on the army to back an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro.<\/p>\n

He initially denied the drug charges but later changed his plea to guilty, fuelling speculation he had cut a deal with US authorities for a lesser sentence in exchange for incriminating information about Maduro.<\/p>\n

The UK and EU announced sanctions against Maduro’s government following his return to office earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to $50m (\u00a337.2m), accusing him of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world”. US President Donald Trump is a long-time critic of Maduro, who returned to office in January following an election marred by vote-rigging allegations. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":12413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,22],"tags":[3829,3830],"class_list":["post-12412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-world","tag-president-nicolas-maduro","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12414,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12412\/revisions\/12414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}