Nicols Maduro effectively converted Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups as he and his allies stole billions from the South American country, the Justice Department charged in several indictments against the embattled socialist and his inner circle that were made public Thursday.
The coordinated unsealing of indictments against 14 officials and government-connected individuals, and rewards of USD 55 million against Maduro and four others, attacked all the key planks of what Attorney General William Barr called the "corrupt Venezuelan regime," including the Maduro-dominated judiciary and the powerful armed forces.
One indictment by prosecutors in New York accused Maduro and socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, head of the rubber-stamping constitutional assembly, of conspiring with Colombian rebels and members of the military "to flood the United States with cocaine" and use the drug trade as a "weapon against America."
Maduro blasted back by accusing the US and Colombia of "giving orders to flood Venezuela with violence."
"The Maduro regime is awash in corruption and criminality," Barr said in an online news conference from Washington. "While the Venezuelan people suffer, this cabal lines their pockets with drug money, and the proceeds of their corruption. And this has to come to an end."
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