The Venezuelans sending letters to Nicolás Maduro: ‘I’ve spent 11 years without my family because of you’

The capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, by the Trump administration and their imprisonment in the United States offers an opportunity many Venezuelans have longed for: to tell the Chavista leader precisely what they think of him. Maduro’s new permanent residence at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, has provided them with a fixed address to which they can send messages. Some of these missives include recriminations about what his authoritarian government has meant for their lives, others contain insults, and some even employ sarcasm; all are on their way to the MDC with the intention of reaching Maduro’s cell.

The idea came to a 21-year-old Venezuelan woman living in Florida when she learned of Maduro’s capture in Caracas by U.S. special forces on January 3 and his subsequent transfer to New York. “I knew that Luigi Mangione (the man accused of killing Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, in December 2024) received a lot of letters, so I thought Maduro might too,” explains Storm, the pseudonym she uses to protect her identity and that of her family.

Maduro is being held at the MDC, awaiting trial on charges brought against him by the U.S. authorities: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. There is no expectation that the former president will be released from his cell anytime soon, so Storm thought it was an opportunity to let him know the suffering he had caused her. She thought others might want to add to her letter and posted it on her social media account.

The immediate response was overwhelming. When she woke up the following morning, she had over 100 messages from people wanting to send Maduro a letter. She had to mute her notifications because they kept pouring in and, if she didn’t reply, the senders would repeat their message in previous comments to bring her attention to it.

Storm curated a selection of them and included 35 messages, all anonymous, in a three-page letter. She put them in an envelope and, with a blue pen, wrote the address of the intended recipient: Nicolás Maduro Moros, BOP register number 00734-506. Metropolitan Detention Center. 80 29th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232. For less than a dollar, Maduro seemed more accessible than ever.

Many of the messages reminded Maduro of the damage he has caused to Venezuela during the nearly 13 years he ruled as president. “No cell is dark enough to pay for the hunger and exile of millions. May your only companion be your conscience, and may fate grant you a long life, but behind bars, so you can watch from oblivion as Venezuela is reborn without you,” reads one message. “You ruined an entire country and still thought you deserved applause. You confused fear with respect and the suffering of others with governing. If today confinement feels familiar, it’s not injustice, it’s consistency. Some are born to rule. Others end up exactly where they belong,” said another.

Some of the notes recounted personal stories: “Nicolás Maduro, I forgive you. I forgive you for the fact that, thanks to you, my family was destroyed and I grew up with my grandparents, not my parents, whom I only spoke to on the phone, working up to 18 hours a day. I forgive you for my own good, not yours,” one read. “I’ve spent 11 years without my family because of you, and I’ll never forget that. But now I’m happy that you have to spend time without your family, without your wife, alone in a cold room,” another said.

Others preferred to adopt a humorous tone. “Were you able to have your little glass of oil before you left?”; “Let’s see if Chávez’s little bird visits you there!”: “Dude, is it cold in the USA?”; and “You can’t eat arepas anymore,” were some of the comments that chose a lighthearted tone to mock Maduro’s new reality. “Clench your fist, Mr. President, because whoever messes with Venezuela, withers away. Your words,” another reminded him.

Storm omitted some messages that she felt could lead to reprisals against the senders. “I received messages from relatives of political prisoners, but I didn’t want to put them at risk, because they live in Venezuela. There were very personal things that I didn’t want to include,” she explains. She also discarded the numerous insults and obscene language directed at Maduro, for fear that, in violation of regulations, the letter wouldn’t reach its intended recipient.

Storm didn’t initially consider that her idea, which served as a way for her to vent the suffering inflicted upon her by the Maduro government, would also offer relief to her fellow Venezuelans. In 2015, her family had to flee the country because her parents were active in the opposition and helped finance anti-government protests. One day, a neighbor warned them that the military had come looking for them at their home, and without hesitation, they went into exile.

Now, after her initiative went viral, she fears reprisals against her family who remain in Venezuela. The news of Maduro’s departure brought her to tears of joy, but now she acknowledges the great uncertainty surrounding the country’s future. Furthermore, while she has received numerous positive responses, not all Venezuelans support her venture. “You are a traitor to your own country. You would sell your mother for a bowl of lentils. Worm,” one comment read. Other messages were filled with obscenities and threats.

Although Storm never revealed her name, someone identified her and published it. They also found her school and her Instagram account. Fearing reprisals for her family, she temporarily made her account private. Now that she has made it public again, she continues to receive messages to send to Maduro, and Storm is preparing her second letter.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition