The United States Department of Justice unsealed drug trafficking charges Thursday against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and several other senior Venezuelan officials.
Maduro is accused of working with the Colombian guerilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in a drug-smuggling operation that helped “devastate American communities,” the Justice Department stated in a news release.
“Today we announce criminal charges against Nicolás Maduro Moros for running, together with his top lieutenants, a narco-terrorism partnership with the FARC for the past 20 years,” said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in the release, using the acronym for the guerilla group in Spanish.
“The scope and magnitude of the drug trafficking alleged was made possible only because Maduro and others corrupted the institutions of Venezuela and provided political and military protection for the rampant narco-terrorism crimes described in our charges.”
Narco-terrorism carries a minimum of 50 years in prison, Fox News reported.
Attorney General William Barr said in a news conference streamed online that Maduro’s Russian-supported regime allowed the FARC terror group “to use Venezuela as a safe haven from which they can continue to conduct their cocaine trafficking,” according to NBC News.
U.S. brings drug trafficking charges against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and several others, accusing them of trying ‘to flood the United States with cocaine,’ and offered a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro https://t.co/1KQsvOCZDH pic.twitter.com/zO6YkHwXQT
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 26, 2020
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