The U.S. Justice and State departments on Thursday doubled the bounty for information leading to the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, raising it to $50 million.
"Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like TdA [Tren de Aragua], Sinaloa and Cartel of the Suns [Cartel de Soles] to bring deadly violence to our country," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video statement, calling the bounty "historic."
Bondi said that, to date, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has seized "30 tons [27 metric tons] of cocaine allegedly linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly 7 tons linked to Maduro himself, which represents a primary form of income for the deadly cartels based in Venezuela and Mexico."
"[Maduro] is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we doubled his reward to $50 million," Bondi said.
According to the U.S. government, Maduro has allegedly turned Venezuela into a narco-state, entering into partnership with Colombian guerrillas to export drugs to Europe and the U.S. through an organization known as the Cartel of the Suns, allegedly made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials.
In 2020, Maduro was charged in a Southern District of New York federal indictment for narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, and possession and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
In January, the U.S. increased the reward offers to up to $25 million for information leading to the arrest of Maduro as he was sworn in for a third six-year presidential term following an election that many in the international community and the opposition considered rigged.
The U.S. government has not recognized Maduro as Venezuela's president since 2019.
