(Adnkronos) – The United States is doubling the reward promised in exchange for information useful for the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – accused of being “one of the biggest drug traffickers in the world” – bringing the ‘bounty’ to 50 million dollars.
Commenting on the decision, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro is directly linked to drug trafficking. Caracas’ response was immediate: for the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil, it is a “pathetic” move and “pure political propaganda”.
“We are not surprised, considering the source,” he further stated, accusing Bondi of “a desperate attempt to distract” public opinion from the headlines on the Jeffrey Epstein case. During his first term, Trump had accused Maduro and several other senior Venezuelan officials of a series of crimes, from narco-terrorism to corruption to drug trafficking.
At the time, the Justice Department had accused the Venezuelan leader of collaborating with the Colombian FARC “using cocaine as a weapon to flood the United States”. In a message posted on X, Bondi claims that Maduro is linked to groups such as Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has classified as a terrorist organization – and the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
The DEA, she added, has seized “30 tons of cocaine” linked to Maduro and his accomplices, seven tons of which are directly linked to the Venezuelan president. The latter has repeatedly denied being involved in drug trafficking.
