U.S. District Attorney Pam Bondi posted on X on Saturday (January 3) announcing that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges including narco‑terrorism conspiracy, Reuters reports.
The U.S. attacked Venezuela and deposed of Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump said, in Washington's most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
Ahead of the overnight strikes, the U.S. had accused Maduro of running a "narco-state" and rigging the 2024 election, which the opposition said it won overwhelmingly.
The Venezuelan leader, a 63-year-old former bus driver handpicked by the dying Hugo Chavez to succeed him in 2013, has denied those claims and said Washington was intent on taking control of his nation's oil reserves, the largest in the world.
