Ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro stood in a Manhattan courthouse Monday as a captive criminal defendant: surrounded by heavy security, stripped of his power as head of state and facing drug, weapons and conspiracy charges that will likely keep him behind bars for years.
“I was captured,” he said in Spanish before pleading not guilty during a brief arraignment. “I am a decent person, the president of my country.”
Just two days earlier, more than 2,000 miles away in Caracas, Maduro was “at the head of a corrupt, illegitimate government that for decades used government power to protect and promote illegal activities, including drug trafficking,” according to a sweeping indictment unsealed Saturday.
Maduro's rapid fall was preceded not only by his detention over the weekend, which President Trump called “one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military power” in US history, but also by decades of partnerships with “narco-terrorists” from Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico to enrich himself and his family through a “massive” cocaine trade, the indictment alleges.
The charges, based on a 2020 indictment, span a quarter of a century and involve other Venezuelan leaders as well as Maduro's wife and son. They involve extensive coordination with notorious drug trafficking organizations and cartels from across the region, and paint a picture of a world that Trump himself has long sought to implant in the minds of Americans—one in which the country's southern neighbors deliberately flood the United States with deadly drugs and violent criminals, to the devastation of local communities.
It's a portrait of drugs, money and violence as dramatic as the overnight raid that sent planes and helicopters into Venezuelan airspace, U.S. special forces into Maduro's bedroom and landed Maduro and his wife in U.S. custody and ultimately on trial Monday.
It appears to rely on secret intelligence and testimony from other witnesses collected over decades, which Maduro's defense team will undoubtedly try to discredit by casting doubt on the characters – some of the drug traffickers themselves – on whom prosecutors have relied.
Legal experts said the case could take years to reach trial, slowed not only by the usual nuances of a multi-defendant conspiracy trial but also by the added complexity of a prosecution that is almost certainly based in part on classified intelligence.
“This is very different from a typical drug case, even a very high-level drug case. [where] you don't classify State Department cables the way you would when you're actually prosecuting a head of state or a former head of state,” said Renato Stabile, a lawyer for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in a similar cocaine trafficking case in 2024 and then pardoned by Trump last month.
Joe McNally, the former acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, said he expects the case to go to trial at least a year after prosecutors “show their cards” and Maduro's lawyers review the evidence and find their own witnesses.
He said he expects prosecutors to make a strong case (despite the fact that “it is not easy to prove a case involving high-level cartel activity occurring thousands of miles away”) that will properly play out fully in the public eye.
“He'll get his way in court. This is not a court martial,” McNally said. “His guilt or innocence will be decided by 12 people from the district [in New York where he’s been indicted]and ultimately the burden will fall on the prosecutor.”
The case against Maduro
According to the indictment, Maduro and his fellow indicted Venezuelan leaders since about 1999 “collaborated with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world,” including the FARC and ELN groups in Colombia, the Sinaloa and Los Zetas cartels in Mexico, and the Tren de Aragua gang in Venezuela.
Other defendants in this case include Hector Rustenford Guerrero Floresaka “Niño Guerrero”, the supposed leader of Tren de Aragua.
Trump blamed Tren de Aragua for committing violence in the US and used alleged ties between him and Maduro to justify using martial law to deport Venezuelans accused of gang membership to a notorious Salvadoran prison. However, Maduro's ties to the group have been seriously questioned in the past, including US intelligence agencies — and the indictment does not indicate any specific connections between Maduro and Guerrero Flores.
The indictment alleges that Maduro and his associates “facilitated the empowerment and growth of violent narco-terrorism groups that fueled their organizations with cocaine profits,” including by providing “law enforcement cover and logistical support for the transportation of cocaine through Venezuela, knowing that their drug trafficking partners would move the cocaine north into the United States.”
It alleges, in part, that between 2006 and 2008, when he was foreign minister, Maduro sold diplomatic passports to people he knew were drug traffickers specifically so they could transport drug proceeds from Mexico back to Venezuela “under diplomatic cover” and without military or law enforcement inspections of their flights.
It also alleges that between 2004 and 2015, Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores “collaborated in the trafficking of cocaine, much of which had previously been confiscated by Venezuelan law enforcement, with the assistance of an armed military escort.”
It alleges that the couple “supported their own groups of state-sponsored gangs known as teams to facilitate and protect their drug trafficking activities” and “ordered the kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking activities, including ordering the murder of a local drug lord in Caracas.”
The indictment refers to half a dozen other criminal cases already brought in the United States against individuals with alleged ties to Maduro and his alleged associates, some of whom have been convicted.
What's ahead
Stabile said the legally questionable nature of Maduro's detention will undoubtedly be a factor in the upcoming criminal proceedings, with his defense team likely to argue that his detention is illegal. “That will be the focus, and I anticipate it will be the subject of a motion to dismiss,” he said.
However, it is not entirely clear whether anything will come of this argument, as U.S. courts have in the past allowed criminal cases against individuals captured abroad, including former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, to continue. Part of the US argument for why Noriega could be prosecuted was that he was not the legitimate leader of Panama, an argument likely to be made in Maduro's case as well.
Additionally, Stabile said how the case progresses will depend on what evidence the government has against Maduro.
“Will his case be based solely on the testimony of sources and collaborators, as was much the same as in the case of President Hernandez?” – Stabile said. “Or are there recordings? Are there videos? Are there bank statements? Are there text messages? Are there emails?”
McNally said he will be watching who prosecutors line up to testify against Maduro.
“In most high-level drug trafficking cases, international drug trafficking cases that have been prosecuted and gone to trial, the common thread is that you end up with collaborators—individuals who were part of the conspiracy, they were criminal partners of the defendant, and they ultimately decide, hey, it's in my own best interest to come forward and testify,” McNally said.
“Obviously they are cross-examined and often accused of lying for their own benefit,” he said. “But in my experience, cooperators are especially valuable in cases like this, and the key is to then corroborate them with other witnesses who tell the same story or with documentary evidence.”
