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The U.S. military carried out a “large-scale strike” on Venezuela Saturday morning, capturing the nation’s dictatorial leader, Nicolás Maduro, who will face sweeping criminal charges on U.S. soil, according to an unsealed indictment released by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Maduro, who was elected in 2013 and served as Hugo Chavez’s vice president, is facing charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the U.S.
“It’s just it was an amazing thing, the amazing job that these people did. There’s nobody else could have done anything like it,” Trump said of the operation.
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The unsealed indictment focuses on how Maduro allegedly enriched himself and “political elites” by reportedly partnering with vicious gangs and drug cartels that have established syndicates across the Western Hemisphere, including in the U.S., such as New York. The indictment lists six individuals as defendants, including Maduro, his wife, his son and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the leader of a vicious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.
The indictment alleges that Maduro “sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking.”
President Donald Trump has railed against drug cartels for spreading deadly narcotics such as fentanyl in U.S. communities, leading to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths since 2000. Trump has directed his ire at gangs such as Tren de Aragua, which Trump designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization last year.
The indictment accuses Maduro and his co-conspirators — including Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and former Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín — of partnering with narco-terrorists, including the Tren de Aragua gang and its leader, to distribute cocaine since at least 1999.
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“In sum, MADURO MOROS and his co-conspirators have, for decades, partnered with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world, and relied on corrupt officials throughout the region, to distribute tons of cocaine to the United States,” the indictment states.
The indictment alleges that Maduro “participates in, perpetuates, and protects a culture of corruption in which powerful Venezuelan elites enrich themselves through drug trafficking and the protection of their partner drug traffickers.” The indictment describes that defendants worked in coordination with cartels and gangs such as Mexico’s the Zetas, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Colombian group ELN, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army, and Tren de Aragua.
“TdA has expanded its criminal network throughout the Western Hemisphere and established a presence in the United States, including New York,” the indictment said. “TdA’s criminal activities include human smuggling and other illicit acts. TdA has developed additional revenue sources through a range of other criminal activities, including drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, commercial sex trafficking, kidnapping, robbery, theft, fraud, and extortion. TdA members also commit murder, assault, and other acts of violence to enforce and further the organization’s criminal activities.”
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Trump has repeatedly accused Maduro of working with cartels, while underscoring how the foreign gangs have infiltrated the U.S. and spread violence and addiction.
“TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolás Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking,” Trump wrote in a March 2025 presidential proclamation.
He doubled down in his press conference on Saturday, warning that “all political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them.”
Venezuela has argued that Tren de Aragua is no longer an active cartel and was effectively wiped out in 2023, Reuters previously reported.
Maduro and 14 other current and former Venezuelan officials were previously charged by U.S. federal prosecutors in 2020 on narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking allegations. The January 2025 indictment expands on the 2020 document, including adding Maduro’s son and wife as defendants.
The Venezuelan government said in a statement following the Saturday strike that “the civilian and military localities of the city of Caracas, capital of the Republic, and the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira” were impacted by the attack.
The nation accused the U.S. of committing a “very serious military aggression” against Venezuela and carrying out “imperialist aggression.”
“The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, attempting to break the Nation’s political independence by force,” the Government of Venezuela said in a statement. “They will not succeed. After more than two hundred years of independence, the people and their legitimate Government remain steadfast in defense of sovereignty and the inalienable right to decide their own destiny.”
Trump said on Fox News that Maduro and his wife were flown by helicopter to a U.S. military ship. The couple will be transported to New York City, where the dictator is expected to stand trial.
“Yes, the Iwo Jima,” Trump said on Saturday morning on Fox News. “They’ll be heading into New York. The helicopters took them out, and they went by helicopter on a nice flight. I’m sure they loved it, but they’ve killed a lot of people.”
The president said he watched the operation from Mar-a-Lago, where he spent the Christmas holiday, and praised the military for its efforts.
Democrats have taken issue with a lack of notice to Congress over the strike, while MAGA Republicans have rallied around Trump’s decision.
Trump held a press conference from Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, where he said the U.S. will “run” Venezuela until there is a safe transition of power.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. So we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious because that’s what we’re all about. We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela,” he said.
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The capture and strike follows the U.S. military carrying out dozens of strikes on suspected narco-boats since September. Trump campaigned in-part on ending the flow of deadly narcotics such as fentanyl from other nations – which has lead to surges in overdose deaths across the last two decades – including leveling tariffs on China to curb the flow of such drugs and strengthening the U.S. borders.
Democrats have slammed the Trump administration over its strikes on the suspected narco-boats, with Trump defending that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels after the groups evolved into transnational terror organizations. Officials previously argued the strikes were necessary to curb the flow of opioid deaths in the U.S., while experts said the pressure campaign on Venezuela is likely aimed to also oust Maduro as leader of the oil-rich nation.
“We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by sea … each boat kills 25, on average, 25,000 people. We knocked out 97%. And those drugs mostly come from a place called Venezuela,” Trump said on Saturday of the boat strikes.
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Foreign adversaries condemned the U.S. over the strike, including the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which reported Saturday that the country is “deeply shocked and strongly condemns the use of force by the U.S. against a sovereign country and the use of force against the president of a country.”
Russia, which is a crucial ally to Venezuela, also condemned the strike and capture in public statements.
“This morning, the United States committed an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. This is deeply concerning and condemnable,” the Russia Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. “The pretexts used to justify such actions are unfounded. Ideological animosity has prevailed over business pragmatism and the willingness to build relationships based on trust and predictability.”
Bondi warned on X that Maduro and his wife “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
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“On behalf of the entire U.S. DOJ, I would like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People, and a huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers,” Bondi wrote.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Sinkewicz contributed to this report.
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