On the 3rd (local time), U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who were announced to have been captured in a U.S. military operation, had already been indicted in the United States on charges including "narco-terrorism conspiracy" and would face the U.S. judiciary's "full prosecution."
Bondi said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that "Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores have been indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for conspiring to commit narco-terrorism against the United States, conspiring to import cocaine (into the United States), and conspiring to possess machine guns and destructive deadly weapons."
Bondi emphasized, "They will soon face the full prosecution of U.S. justice, in a U.S. courtroom, on U.S. soil."
Bondi added, "On behalf of the American people, I extend enormous thanks to President Trump, who had the courage to hold Maduro accountable, and on behalf of the entire Department of Justice, to our brave military, which carried out an amazing and highly successful mission to apprehend these two international drug traffickers."
This is taken to suggest that the U.S. military and law enforcement will bring the captured presidential couple to the United States to stand criminal trial in a U.S. court.
Earlier, in 2020 during the first Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted President Maduro and more than a dozen senior officials of the regime on charges including narco-terrorism.
Narco-terrorism is a term referring to committing drug crimes while using violence to obstruct the activities of government agencies and to harm society.
At the time, the U.S. Department of Justice said that Maduro and others conspired with remnants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the former largest guerrilla group in Colombia, to sell cocaine to the United States.
On social media platform Truth Social, President Trump said, "The United States successfully carried out a major strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolás Maduro," adding that the presidential couple was apprehended and then transported abroad by air.