Nicolás Maduro faces four federal counts in the U.S. indictment against him: narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and two weapons counts tied to machine guns and destructive devices used in drug trafficking. The charges were first filed in the Southern District of New York in March 2020 and expanded in a superseding indictment unsealed in January 2026, after U.S. special operations forces seized Maduro in Caracas and brought him to New York. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty and are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn while the case proceeds before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.
The Four Counts
The narco-terrorism conspiracy count names Maduro along with Diosdado Cabello Rondón and Ramón Rodríguez Chacín. Prosecutors allege the three distributed cocaine to fund organizations designated by the United States as foreign terrorist groups, including Tren de Aragua, the FARC, the ELN, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Cartel del Noreste. The count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years.
The cocaine importation conspiracy count applies to all six defendants and alleges a conspiracy to import five or more kilograms of cocaine into the United States. It carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years.
The two weapons counts allege possession of, and conspiracy to possess, machine guns and destructive devices in connection with the drug trafficking. Those counts carry mandatory consecutive sentences on top of any term imposed for the drug charges.
The Scheme Prosecutors Describe
The indictment describes a 25-year arrangement in which senior Venezuelan officials allegedly used state institutions to move cocaine north. Traffickers, according to the government, received diplomatic passports, planes operating under diplomatic cover, and armed military escorts. Prosecutors call the network the “Cartel de Los Soles” and describe it as a patronage structure in which high-ranking officials partnered with foreign narco-terrorist groups to produce, protect, and transport cocaine. The State Department has estimated that 200 to 250 tons of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela annually by 2020.
Who Else Is Charged
The superseding indictment names five co-defendants alongside Maduro.
Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, Maduro’s wife, is accused of accepting bribes to broker meetings between drug traffickers and officials. She was captured with Maduro and has pleaded not guilty.
Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior, is accused of receiving bribes to protect traffickers after cocaine seizures. As of mid-2026, he is not in U.S. custody and continues to hold his government position.
Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former Venezuelan government minister, is charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy.
Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, Maduro’s son, is alleged to have discussed shipping cocaine to the United States in cargo containers and to have met with FARC representatives about drug and weapons transfers.
Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, known as “Niño Guerrero,” is identified as the leader of Tren de Aragua. He was separately indicted in December 2025 on racketeering, material-support-for-terrorism, and drug conspiracy charges and remains at large. The State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Cooperating Witnesses
Two former Venezuelan officials have already pleaded guilty in the broader case and may testify against Maduro.
Hugo Carvajal Barrios, Venezuela’s former military intelligence chief, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to narco-terrorism, drug importation, and weapons counts. He admitted helping coordinate a 5.6-ton cocaine shipment in 2006 and providing the FARC with automatic weapons and explosives. His sentencing was postponed in early 2026 with no new date set, which legal observers described as a possible sign of a cooperation agreement. In a December 2025 letter to President Trump, Carvajal said he was “willing to provide additional details” and alleged that Maduro’s regime had deliberately used drugs as a weapon against the United States.
Clíver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, a former Venezuelan general, pleaded guilty in June 2023 to conspiring to provide material support to the FARC. Prosecutors asked for a 30-year sentence; his defense asked for six years.
How Maduro Was Brought to New York
Maduro’s appearance in a Manhattan courtroom came through a military operation, not an extradition. On January 3, 2026, more than 200 U.S. special operations personnel carried out “Operation Absolute Resolve,” striking Fort Tiuna Military Complex, La Carlota Air Base, La Guaira Port, and other sites in and around Caracas. Maduro and Flores were taken from his residence. Approximately 75 people died in the operation, including 32 Cuban special forces soldiers serving as Maduro’s bodyguards and at least two civilians. No U.S. personnel were killed.
The method of capture is itself likely to be litigated. U.S. courts have long applied the Ker-Frisbie doctrine, which holds that a court’s power to try a defendant is not diminished by the fact that the defendant was forcibly brought before it. The Supreme Court reinforced that principle in United States v. Alvarez-Machain (1992), ruling 6-3 that a Mexican citizen’s forcible abduction by U.S. agents did not bar his prosecution. The Department of Justice has also relied on an Office of Legal Counsel memorandum asserting inherent presidential authority under Article II to order extraterritorial military operations.
Where the Case Stands
Maduro and Flores made their first court appearance on January 5, 2026, pleading not guilty. A status conference followed on March 26, 2026. The case remains in early pretrial stages, and legal experts expect proceedings to run for years rather than months.
The Fight Over Defense Funding
The most active pretrial dispute so far concerns Maduro’s ability to pay his lawyers. Defense attorney Barry J. Pollack filed a motion to dismiss the indictment in February 2026 under Rule 12(b), arguing that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control was unconstitutionally blocking the Venezuelan government from financing Maduro’s defense. According to the filings, OFAC issued a license on January 9, 2026, allowing the payments, then revoked it less than three hours later without explanation. The defense noted that OFAC granted a similar license for Flores’s legal fees in the same case and called the differential treatment arbitrary. The motion did not address immunity or other defenses.
At the March 26 hearing, Judge Hellerstein said he was “not inclined to take the drastic step of dismissal” but called a defendant’s right to a defense “paramount.” He questioned prosecutors about whether the sanctions blocking defense payments remained “relevant” given the changed U.S.-Venezuela relationship after Maduro’s capture, and he appeared to lean toward giving the government a fixed window to consult with OFAC and resolve the licensing issue.
Other Expected Challenges
Maduro is expected to seek dismissal on head-of-state immunity grounds. The United States has not recognized him as Venezuela’s legitimate president since 2019, and the indictment itself labels him the “de facto but illegitimate ruler” of Venezuela. The Supreme Court held in Zivotofsky v. Kerry (2015) that the president has exclusive power to recognize foreign sovereigns, which could undercut the immunity argument.
The Classified Information Procedures Act is also likely to shape the timeline. Prosecutors may hold intelligence-derived evidence that is classified, and even material they do not intend to use at trial must be reviewed for exculpatory or otherwise discoverable content. CIPA proceedings governed similar issues in the classified documents case involving Donald Trump and are expected to add considerable time to pretrial preparation. Legal scholars anticipate that the case will eventually reach the Supreme Court, though the specific grounds for appeal remain uncertain.
Separate International Proceedings
The U.S. prosecution runs alongside two distinct international tracks that do not share charges or courtrooms with the New York case. The International Criminal Court has been investigating alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela since 2018 under a referral originally made by Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru, with later referrals from Uruguay and Ecuador. The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber rejected Venezuela’s effort to halt the investigation in June 2023, and the Appeals Chamber unanimously upheld that ruling on March 1, 2024. In November 2025, the court amended its regulations so that newly issued arrest warrants would initially be sealed, raising the possibility that a warrant for Maduro already exists, though none has been publicly confirmed.
Argentina has opened a separate investigation under universal jurisdiction, grounded in Article 118 of the Argentine Constitution. An Argentine judge has issued international arrest warrants for both Maduro and Cabello, along with 14 officers of the Bolivarian National Guard. These proceedings concern alleged crimes against humanity rather than drug trafficking and are not part of the case now pending in the Southern District of New York.