US Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi says Venezuelan president one of many world’s ‘largest narco-traffickers’.
The USA has provided a $50m reward for info resulting in the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, doubling an earlier reward of $25m set by the Trump administration in January.
The US has accused the Venezuelan leader of being one of many world’s main narco-traffickers and dealing with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
In a video posted to social media on Thursday saying the “historic” enhance in reward cash, US Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi accused Maduro of collaborating with Venezuelan crime syndicates Tren de Aragua, Cartel of the Suns and the infamous Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
“He is without doubt one of the largest narco-traffickers on the planet and a risk to our nationwide safety. Subsequently, we doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi stated.
“Underneath President Trump’s management, Maduro won’t escape justice, and he might be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” she stated, earlier than giving the general public a hotline telephone quantity the place they’ll report suggestions.
Bondi additionally stated that the US Division of Justice had thus far seized greater than $700m in property linked to Maduro, together with two non-public jets, 9 autos, and claimed that tonnes of seized cocaine had been traced on to the president.
Right this moment, @TheJusticeDept and @StateDept are saying a $50 MILLION REWARD for info resulting in the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. pic.twitter.com/D8LNqjS9yk
— Lawyer Basic Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 7, 2025
Venezuelan International Minister Yvan Gil responded on the Telegram platform to Bondi’s announcement, saying it was “essentially the most ridiculous smokescreen ever seen” and designed to distract consideration from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy within the US.
“It doesn’t shock us, coming from who it comes from. The identical one who promised a non-existent ‘secret listing’ of Epstein and who wallows in scandals of political favours,” the minister stated.
“Her present is a joke, a determined distraction from her personal miseries. The dignity of our homeland shouldn’t be on the market. We reject this crude political propaganda operation,” he stated.
Maduro was indicted in a US federal courtroom in 2020, throughout the first Trump presidency, together with a number of shut allies, on federal drug expenses.
On the time, the US provided a $15m reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25m – the identical quantity the US provided for the seize of Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, assaults.
In June, a former director of the Venezuelan navy intelligence pleaded responsible to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism expenses within the US, per week earlier than his trial was set to start.
Hugo Carvajal, who served within the authorities of the late President Hugo Chavez from 2004 to 2011, admitted guilt in 4 felony counts, together with narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons expenses.
US federal prosecutors had alleged the previous major-general, together with different high-ranking Venezuelan authorities and navy officers, led a drug cartel that tried to “flood” the US with cocaine.
Carvajal had served as a diplomat representing Maduro’s authorities earlier than breaking with him to help the nation’s US-backed political opposition. He was extradited from Spain to the US in July 2023 following greater than a decade-long marketing campaign by the Justice Division.
Regardless of the US rewards, Maduro remains in power after his re-election as president in 2024 in a vote that was condemned as a sham by Washington, the European Union and a number of other Latin American governments.
Final month, the Trump administration struck a deal to secure the release of 10 Americans jailed in Caracas in alternate for Venezuela seeing the return house of dozens of individuals deported by the US to El Salvador beneath the Trump administration’s new immigration crackdown.
Shortly after, the White Home additionally reversed course and allowed US oil large Chevron to renew drilling in Venezuela after it was beforehand blocked by US sanctions.
