The United States has raised its reward for the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was indicted in the US on drug trafficking charges in 2020 to $50 million.
The United States, which does not acknowledge Maduro’s previous two election victories, describes Maduro as “one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers and a threat to our national security.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video on social media that the Department of Justice and State Department has announced a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro.
“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security.”
The previous bounty was set in January at $25 million.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said Bondi’s “pathetic” bounty was “the most ridiculous smokescreen we have ever seen
In 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials were indicted in federal court in New York on several charges including participating in a “narco-terrorism” conspiracy.
The Justice Department accused Maduro of leading a cocaine trafficking gang called “The Cartel of the Suns” that shipped hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades, earning hundreds of millions of dollars.
Investigators say the cartel worked hand-in-hand with the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the United States has labeled a terrorist organisation.
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Bondi said Maduro also had worked with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
The US government has also seized more than $700 million in Maduro-linked assets, including two Venezuelan government aircraft, since September last year, according to Bondi.
The 62-year-old Maduro, a former bus driver and trade unionist, faces up to life in prison if he can be tried and is convicted.
At the time of the indictment, Maduro slammed what he called “spurious, false” accusations.
The US government has not recognised Maduro, who first took office in 2013, as the duly elected president of Venezuela since what the State Department has called a “deeply flawed 2018 presidential election”.
Washington has placed an array of economic sanctions on Maduro’s government.
For its part, Maduro’s government has long denounced US interference in Venezuela.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced that security services had thwarted a bomb attack in a commercial area of the capital Caracas.
As Venezuelan authorities often do in such cases, Cabello accused the US and the Venezuelan opposition of instigating the thwarted attack.
