WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Government has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Under its Narcotics Rewards Program, the Department of State had already offered a reward of $25 million for the capture of Maduro.
Thursday, the Department of State and the Department of Justice jointly announced that the reward has been increased to up to $50 million for violating U.S. narcotics laws.
For more than a decade, Maduro has been a leader of Cartel de los Soles, which is responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States. On July 25, the Department of the Treasury designated Cartel de Los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that since 2020, Maduro has strangled democracy and grasped at power in Venezuela. Last year, Maduro claimed to have won Venezuela's presidential election but failed to present any evidence that he had prevailed. The United States has refused to recognize Maduro as the winner of the election, held on July 28, 2024, and as the President of Venezuela.
In a video posted on X, Attorney General Pamela Bondi accused Maduro of coordinating with groups like Tren de Aragua - a Venezuelan gang that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist outfit - and the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful Mexico-based criminal network.
She claimed the US Drug Enforcement Administration had 'seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself'.
For more than 35 years, the Narcotics Rewards Program has been an effective tool to assist the U.S. government in disrupting and dismantling transnational drug trafficking organizations.
The program gives the Secretary of State statutory authority to offer rewards of up to $25 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of narcotics traffickers who operate primarily outside of the United States and are major violators of U.S. narcotics laws.
The NRP has helped bring more than 75 foreign major violators of U.S. narcotics laws, including heads of drug trafficking organizations, to justice, and the Department of State has paid more than $135?million in rewards.
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