Nicolas Maduro is set to face charges in a US court on Monday that he led a cocaine conspiracy that spanned more than a quarter of a century, in a case that could raise questions about the strong-arm tactics used to bring him to justice.
Maduro was being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, notorious for its poor conditions, and will be tried in a US court across the East River in lower Manhattan.
He arrived at the facility late at night after being evacuated by US forces from the Caracas compound on Saturday morning. His case has been assigned to New York federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.
The former Venezuelan president, who was initially indicted in 2020, is accused of using his position to run an organization that shipped thousands of tons of cocaine to the US, personally provided diplomatic cover to drug traffickers and money launderers, ordered kidnappings and murders and enabled corruption that enriched his family and members of his regime.
The case could raise fundamental questions beyond Maduro’s alleged drug crimes: whether a federal indictment helped oust the leader of a foreign nation, whom U.S. President Donald Trump now plans to “run” until regime change.
Harold Hongju Koh, professor of international law at Yale Law School, said, “Without any legitimate claim of self-defense, Trump has clearly violated the UN Charter, and engaged in an illegal extraterritorial arrest, which will be vigorously contested in a US court.” “All this under the pretext of stopping drugs, while his transparent goal is to profit from oil.”
Maduro’s case is reminiscent of the earlier prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was similarly ousted from his country in a 1989 US military operation. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to 17 years in a US prison before his extradition to France and later to Panama. He died in prison in Panama in 2017.
Maduro has been under investigation by US law enforcement for years. During Trump’s first presidency, the Justice Department accused Maduro and others of acting as leaders of the “Cartel of the Sons”, in reference to the insignia on the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officers.
Prosecutors say it enabled a wide range of cocaine producers and traffickers, from Colombia’s FARC guerrilla rebels to Mexico’s Sinaloa, Zeta and Tren de Aragua cartels, to use Venezuela as a safe haven for security and logistics as they shipped cocaine to the US and Europe.
His wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to arrange a meeting between a smuggler and the director of Venezuela’s anti-narcotics office.
US officials said the military operation to capture Maduro and his wife was targeting “fugitives from US justice”. But Maduro’s defense lawyers are likely to challenge the way he was arrested.
“I can’t see this being anything other than kidnapping, unlawful rendition,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. He said formal extradition requests are required to remove criminal suspects from foreign countries.
Some legal experts also said the US attack violated the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force with few exceptions, and has set core principles for engagement globally for decades.
Ryan Goodman, a law professor at NYU School of Law, said, “These actions appear to be a gross violation of international law, including the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force, the immunity of a head of state from criminal prosecution, and potentially the war crime of ‘plundering’ in the context of President Trump’s stated intentions to expropriate the Venezuelan oil industry.”
Others said it goes against the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power to declare war or authorize the use of armed force for smaller conflicts.
But University of California Berkeley law professor John Yu said, “The Constitution does not require Congress to declare war before the president can commence hostilities”.
“Before war, Congress has funding checks to reduce the size and shape of the military available to the President,” he said, adding that Congress has the power to impeach the President to challenge his actions.
The administration could claim that the illegal drug trade justified its action against Maduro as self-defense – an exception in the UN Charter that allows the use of military force alongside actions authorized by the UN Security Council. But lawyers have disputed this argument.
“This would be a new claim in international law, but international law does not completely prohibit it,” Yu said.
It may also point to the controversial 1989 Justice Department memorandum He argues that the FBI can investigate and arrest individuals who violate US law, even if it violates international law.
O’Connell said Venezuela’s actions would echo beyond US borders.
“We will not be seen as leaders in the rule of law,” O’Connell said. “We allow leaders who want to take such violent action to take matters into their own hands,” he said. “We have created a more chaotic world.”
