The newly released criminal indictment filed against now-arrested Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, his wife, and others reveals key details about how they used diplomatic planes to fly drug money from Mexico into Venezuela. The indictment also shows a long-standing trafficking relationship with the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas (now called Cartel Del Noreste).
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi released the indictment on Saturday morning, just hours after U.S. special forces arrested Maduro during an early morning raid in Venezuela.
While the indictment focuses primarily on Maduro, his wife, his chief military ally Diosdado Cabello, and Hector Ruthenford Guerrero Flores, a top leader with the Tren De Aragua terrorist organization, the court document alleges a close business relationship between Venezuela’s key players, Colombian terrorist organizations, and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas.
According to U.S. prosecutors, between 2006 and 2008, when he was the minister of foreign affairs, Nicolas Maduro sold diplomatic passports to various drug traffickers to allow them to move drug proceeds from Mexico into Venezuela under diplomatic cover. Maduro would also provide diplomatic immunity to private airplanes used by drug traffickers to be able to fly between the two countries without scrutiny from law enforcement and military officials. The planes were not carrying diplomatic materials, but were loaded with cartel cash, the indictment revealed.
Federal prosecutors also alleged that in 2007, Maduro’s wife, Celia Flores de Maduro, took a hefty bribe to arrange a meeting between top drug traffickers and Venezuela’s top drug enforcement agent at the time, Nestor Reverol Torres. As a result of that meeting, Reverol Torres agreed to receive $100,000 per drug shipment and would share a portion of that bribe with Maduro’s wife, the indictment alleges.
In 2006, Nicolas Maduro and his family coordinated the shipment of 5.5 tons of cocaine in a jet that flew from Venezuela to Playa Del Carmen in Mexico, the indictment revealed. The drugs had previously been seized by Venezuelan law enforcement and then loaded into the plane by the Venezuelan military.
The criminal indictment alleges that between 2003 and 2011, Diosdado Cabello worked with Colombian cartels and Los Zetas to move multi-ton shipments of cocaine through Venezuela into Mexican shipping ports. The drugs were moved in shipping containers that averaged five tons but at times carried as much as 20 tons of cocaine. The drugs were allegedly protected by Cabello and Venezuela’s top military officials known as “The Generals”.
Federal prosecutors allege that since 2011, the then leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, financed several drug laboratories in Colombia and that those drugs were then moved into Venezuela, where that country’s military protected them before being moved north towards Mexico and eventually reaching the United States.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.