US Legal professional Common Pam Bondi says Venezuelan president one of many world’s ‘largest narco-traffickers’.
America has supplied 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 chief 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” improve in reward cash, US Legal professional Common 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 likely one of the largest narco-traffickers on this planet and a menace to our nationwide safety. Subsequently, we doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi mentioned.
“Beneath President Trump’s management, Maduro won’t escape justice, and he shall be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” she mentioned, earlier than giving the general public a hotline cellphone quantity the place they’ll report suggestions.
Bondi additionally mentioned that the US Division of Justice had up to now seized greater than $700m in belongings linked to Maduro, together with two personal jets, 9 automobiles, and claimed that tonnes of seized cocaine had been traced on to the president.
At present, @TheJusticeDept and @StateDept are saying a $50 MILLION REWARD for info resulting in the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. pic.twitter.com/D8LNqjS9yk
— Legal professional Common Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 7, 2025
Venezuelan Overseas Minister Yvan Gil responded on the Telegram platform to Bondi’s announcement, saying it was “probably 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 checklist’ of Epstein and who wallows in scandals of political favours,” the minister mentioned.
“Her present is a joke, a determined distraction from her personal miseries. The dignity of our homeland isn’t on the market. We reject this crude political propaganda operation,” he mentioned.
Maduro was indicted in a US federal courtroom in 2020, in the course of the first Trump presidency, together with a number of shut allies, on federal drug fees.
On the time, the US supplied a $15m reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25m – the identical quantity the US supplied 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 fees within the US, every 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 fees.
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 stays in energy after his re-election as president in 2024 in a vote that was condemned as a sham by Washington, the European Union and several other Latin American governments.
Final month, the Trump administration struck a deal to safe the discharge of 10 Individuals jailed in Caracas in change for Venezuela seeing the return residence 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 big Chevron to renew drilling in Venezuela after it was beforehand blocked by US sanctions.