Nicolás Maduro, the captured president of Venezuela, is expected to face charges in the Southern District of New York, where prosecutors had targeted him for years, the U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi, said on Saturday.
Ms. Bondi posted the news on social media, adding that Mr. Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, who was not included in the original indictment, had also been charged. Both, she said, “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
Mr. Maduro was indicted in Manhattan in 2020. With those charges pending, Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to Mr. Maduro last year as a “fugitive from American justice.”
That indictment, based on an investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, accused Mr. Maduro and five others of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, among other charges.
Federal prosecutors often return what is known as a superseding indictment to add defendants or charges to an existing indictment. In this case, Ms. Bondi’s post on X said Mr. Maduro’s wife would also be charged, suggesting that a new indictment had been filed under seal.
The 2020 indictment said that Mr. Maduro had come to head a drug trafficking organization, the Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, as he gained power in Venezuela. Cartel de los Soles has been an ironic nickname for the Maduro administration’s military officers, who wear suns on their epaulets.
Under Mr. Maduro’s leadership, the indictment charged, the organization sought not only to enrich members and enhance their power, but also to “flood” the United States with cocaine “and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in this country.” The indictment said Maduro and others had “prioritized using cocaine as a weapon against America.”
Prosecutors in the Southern District had long targeted Mr. Maduro, and the investigation that led to his 2020 indictment was overseen by Emil Bove III, a prosecutor who years later became one of President Trump’s criminal defense lawyers and whom the president this year appointed to the federal bench. One of the other prosecutors was Amanda Houle, who now leads the office’s criminal division.
Though the circumstances of Mr. Maduro’s capture in a military raid were extraordinary, the American legal system has experience in arresting South American leaders and putting them on trial. Manhattan prosecutors have a saying — “you can’t suppress the body” — meaning that once a person is in custody, a case tends to move forward regardless of the circumstances of the arrest.
In 1989, the United States invaded Panama and compelled the surrender of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, Panama’s military leader, who was taken to Florida and arrested by D.E.A. agents. Three years after his surrender, Mr. Noriega was tried, convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
In 2022, the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, was arrested by law-enforcement officials from his own country in connection with an extradition request from the United States. He, too, was brought to the United States, where he was tried, convicted and sentenced.
Late last year, Mr. Trump abruptly pardoned Mr. Hernández, saying that the case against him — which had also been overseen by Mr. Bove and had been built over several presidential administrations — “was a Biden administration setup.”
The case against Mr. Hernández and the 2020 charges against Mr. Maduro bear a significant resemblance. Both leaders were accused of using their governments as vehicles for the exporting of cocaine into the United States. Both were charged with conspiring to possess machine guns, which, when combined with drug trafficking charges, carries potentially lengthy prison sentences.
Mr. Maduro’s 2020 indictment has been pending in the Manhattan federal court before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a veteran of nearly three decades on the Southern District bench.
Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1998, the judge is best known for having overseen the many lawsuits filed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, by families of the dead and workers at ground zero.
More recently, Judge Hellerstein, 92, has presided over Mr. Trump’s attempts to move his Manhattan criminal conviction into federal court, a matter that is pending.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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