The US raises reward for Venezuela’s Maduro to $50 million

The United States government will double to $50 million the reward it is offering for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in a video distributed on the social network X. In the message, Bondi accuses Maduro of collaborating with criminal organizations like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel to smuggle drugs into the United States. “He is one of the largest drug traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security,” Bondi asserts in the video.

The reward is being offered by the Justice and State Departments, the senior official said. “The DEA has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself, which represents a primary source of income for the deadly cartels based in Venezuela and Mexico,” said Bondi.

Meanwhile, the State Department said that for over a decade Maduro has been “a leader of the Cartel of the Suns, which is responsible for drug trafficking to the United States.” The Treasury Department has included that organization on its list of specially designated global terrorist groups.

The first Trump administration had offered $15 million for information leading to the arrest of the Venezuelan president. Later the administration of Joe Biden raised that amount to $25 million after the Chavista leader was sworn in for a third term amid controversy over the election.

The Biden administration denounced fraud in the July 2024 presidential elections, in which Maduro declared himself the winner without providing the voter tallies to confirm the result. Washington believes the legitimate winner was opposition leader Edmundo González, who did provide copies of the records proving his victory.

According to then-National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, the decision to increase the bounty was part of “a concerted message of solidarity with the Venezuelan people” that sought to “further elevate international efforts to maintain pressure on Maduro and his proxies.”

Bondi said in the video that despite the fact that the DOJ has seized two private jets and several vehicles from Maduro, “his reign of terror continues.”

In Caracas, Foreign Minister Yvan Gil described the U.S. move as “pathetic” and “the most ridiculous smokescreen we have ever seen.”

“While we are busy dismantling the terrorist plots orchestrated from [the U.S.], this lady is putting on a media circus to please Venezuela’s defeated far right,” he added. Gil also attacked Bondi herself, “the same person who promised Jeffrey Epstein’s non-existent ‘secret list’ and who is mired in scandals involving political favors.”

“Her show is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own miseries. The dignity of our homeland is not for sale. We repudiate this crude political propaganda operation,” concluded the head of Venezuelan diplomacy.

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