The Trump administration is doubling to $50 million a reward for the arrest of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the U.S. with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday in a video announcing the reward.
A history of indictments and defiance
Maduro was indicted in Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, along with several close allies on federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine.
At the time, the U.S. offered a $15 million reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25 million—the same amount the U.S. offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Despite the big bounty, Maduro remains entrenched after defying the U.S., the European Union and several Latin American governments, who condemned his 2024 reelection as a sham and recognized his opponent as Venezuela’s duly elected president.
Diplomatic deals and asset seizures
Last month, the Trump administration struck a deal to secure the release of 10 Americans jailed in the capital, Caracas, in exchange for Venezuela getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Shortly after, the White House reversed course and allowed U.S. oil producer Chevron to resume drilling in Venezuela after it was previously blocked by U.S. sanctions.
Bondi said the Justice Department has seized more than $700 million in assets linked to Maduro, including two private jets, and said 7 million tons of seized cocaine had been traced directly to the leftist leader.
Venezuela’s defiant response
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil released a statement characterizing the reward as “pathetic” and accusing Bondi of orchestrating a “crude political propaganda operation.”
“We’re not surprised, coming from whom it comes from. The same one who promised a nonexistent ‘secret list’ of Epstein and who wallows in scandals for political favors,” Gil said, referring to the backlash Bondi faced after the Justice Department announced last month that a long-rumored “client list” of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein does not exist. “Her show is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own misery.”
