By AFP and Entorno | 2025-08-08

The United States doubled its bounty on Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro -- who faces federal drug trafficking charges -- to $50 million on August 7.

Washington, which does not recognize Maduro's past two election victories, accuses the South American country's leader of leading a cocaine trafficking gang.

"Today, the Department of Justice and State Department are announcing a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro," US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video on social media.

"He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security."

The previous bounty was set in January at $25 million.

"We reject this crude political propaganda operation," responded Caracas regime Foreign Minister Yvan Gil on Telegram.

In 2020, Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials were indicted in federal court in New York on several charges including participating in a "narco-terrorism" conspiracy.

'Cartel of the Suns'

The Justice Department accused Maduro of leading a cocaine trafficking gang called the "Cartel of the Suns" that shipped hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades, earning hundreds of millions of dollars.

Investigators say the cartel worked hand in hand with the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization.

Maduro has worked with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, said Bondi.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration "has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself," she continued.

The US government has seized more than $700 million in Maduro-linked assets, including two Venezuelan government aircraft, since last September, according to Bondi.

"Yet Maduro's reign of terror continues," she said. "Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes."

The 62-year-old Maduro faces up to life in prison if he can be tried and is convicted.

At the time of the indictment, Maduro slammed what he called "spurious, false" accusations.

In June, former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Armando Carvajal pleaded guilty to US drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges.

The Miami Herald, citing sources familiar with the case, said Carvajal had offered to provide US authorities with documents and testimony implicating Maduro.

'Deeply flawed' election

Relations between Washington and Caracas have been deteriorating for years.

The US government has not recognized Maduro, who first took office in 2013, as the duly elected president of Venezuela since 2019, after what the State Department called a "deeply flawed 2018 presidential election."

"In the July 28, 2024, Venezuelan presidential election, Maduro fraudulently declared himself the victor despite evidence to the contrary," the State Department said in an announcement of the earlier bounty in January.

"The United States joined many other countries in refusing to recognize Maduro as the legitimate winner of the July 2024 presidential election."

Washington has imposed a range of economic sanctions on Maduro's regime.

The latter long has denounced US "interference" in Venezuela.

On August 7, regime Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced that security services had thwarted a bomb attack in a commercial area of Caracas. He blamed Washington and the domestic opposition.