The US government has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the Venezuela President, Nicolás Maduro.
In a video announcing the reward on X, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, on Thursday, said, “Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”
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The US accused him of being one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers, working with cartels who flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
The recently announced $50 million bounty for the arrest of Venezuela’s sitting leader is double the $25 million reward announced earlier in the year.
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In the video, Ms Bondi accused Mr Maduro of working with Tren de Aragua and Cartel of the Suns, two major Venezuelan crime syndicates, and Sinaloa Cartel, a notorious trafficking organisation in Mexico.
“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we doubled his reward to $50 million,” she said.
The Venezuela President was indicted in Manhattan federal court in 2020, along with several close allies, on federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. This was during the first Trump presidency.
At the time, the US offered a $15 million reward for his arrest, which the Biden administration later increased to $25 million.
The same bounty was once placed on Osama bin Laden after the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Mr Maduro was also re-elected in 2024, in an election that was condemned by the US and several Latin American leaders as fraudulent.
The US Department of Justice has seized more than $700 million in assets linked to the president, including two private jets and nine vehicles, according to Ms Bondi.
She also claimed that tonnes of seized cocaine had been traced directly to the president.
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However, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil, has described Ms Bondi’s announcement as “the most ridiculous smokescreen ever seen.”
In a statement shared on Telegram, he said the announcement was only designed to sway attention away from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
“Her show is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own miseries. The dignity of our homeland is not for sale. We reject this crude political propaganda operation,” he added.
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