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US indicts Venezuela’s Maduro on narcoterrorism charges

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - MARCH 12: President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro speaks during a press conference at Miraflores Government Palace on March 12, 2020 in Caracas, Venezuela. Maduro announced a travel ban for travelers flying in from Europe and Colombia and restricted gatherings and massive events in an attempt to stem the proliferation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Maduro also confirmed there are no cases in Venezuela. (Photo by Carolina Cabral/Getty Images)

MIAMI (AP) — Nicolás Maduro effectively converted Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups as he and his allies stole billions from the South American country, the Justice Department charged in several indictments made public Thursday against the embattled socialist leader and his inner circle.

The coordinated unsealing of indictments against 14 officials and government-connected individuals, and rewards of $55 million for Maduro and four others, attacked all the key planks of what Attorney General William Barr called the “corrupt Venezuelan regime,” including the Maduro-dominated judiciary and the powerful armed forces.

One indictment by prosecutors in New York accused Maduro and socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, head of the rubber-stamping constitutional assembly, of conspiring with Colombian rebels and members of the military “to flood the United States with cocaine” and use the drug trade as a “weapon against America.”

Criminal acts to advance a drug and weapons conspiracy that dates back to the start of Hugo Chavez’s revolution in 1999 occurred as far afield as Syria, Mexico, Honduras and Iran, the indictment alleged. Barr estimated that the conspiracy helped smuggle as much as 250 metric tons of cocaine a year are out of South America.

Maduro blasted back by accusing the U.S.
and Colombia of “giving orders to flood Venezuela with violence.” He
called Donald Trump a “racist cowboy” and warned that he is ready to
fight by whatever means necessary should the U.S. and neighboring
Colombia dare to invade.

His chief prosecutor announced an
investigation against opposition leader Juan Guaidó after one of the
individuals indicted on drug charges, retired army Gen. Cliver Alcala,
said in a radio interview Thursday that he signed a contract with the
opposition leader and his American “advisers” to purchase U.S. assault
rifles for a planned coup against Maduro. Guaidó’s team said he has
never met Alcala, who has been living openly in Colombia since 2018
despite having been previously sanctioned by the U.S. for drug
smuggling.

As the U.S. indictments were announced, Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo said the State Department would offer cash rewards for
information leading to the arrests or convictions of Maduro and his
associates, including rewards of up to $15 million for Maduro and up to
$10 million each for four others.

“The Maduro regime is awash in
corruption and criminality,” Barr said in an online news conference from
Washington. “While the Venezuelan people suffer, this cabal lines their
pockets with drug money, and the proceeds of their corruption. And this
has to come to an end.”

In Miami, prosecutors charged Supreme
Court Chief Justice Maikel Moreno with laundering in the U.S. at least
$3 million in illegal proceeds from case fixing in Venezuela, including
one involving a General Motors factory. Much of the money he spent on
private aircraft, luxury watches and shopping at Prada, prosecutors
allege. Maduro’s Defense Minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino, was charged
with conspiracy to smuggle narcotics in a May 2019 indictment unsealed
in Washington.

The shock indictment of a functioning head of state
is highly unusual and is bound to ratchet up tensions between
Washington and Caracas as the spread of the coronavirus threatens to
collapse Venezuela’s health system and oil-dependent economy driven deep
into the ground by years of corruption and U.S. sanctions. Maduro has
ordered Venezuelans to stay home to try to stave off the spread of the
virus that officials say has infected 106 people.

Analysts said
the indictments could boost U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election
chances in the key swing state of Florida, which he won by a narrow
margin in 2016 and where Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans fleeing
authoritarian regimes have political muscle.

But its unclear how
it brings Venezuela any closer to ending a 15-month standoff between
Maduro, who has the support of Russia and China, and the U.S.-backed
opposition leader Juan Guaidó. It also could fragment the U.S.-led
coalition against Maduro if European and Latin American allies think the
Trump administration is overreaching.

“This kind of action does
nothing to help a negotiated solution — something that’s already really
difficult,” said Roberta Jacobson, who served as the State Department’s
top diplomat for Latin America until 2018.

Maduro, a 57-year-old
former bus driver, portrays himself as an everyman icon of the Latin
American left. He’s long accused the U.S. “empire” of looking for any
excuse to take control of the world’s largest oil reserves, likening its
plotting to the 1989 invasion of Panama and the removal of strongman
Gen. Manuel Noriega to face drug trafficking charges in Florida.

Barr
and Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special envoy on Venezuela,
are driving the hawkish U.S. stance toward Maduro much as they pushed
for Noriega’s ouster in the late 1980s — Barr as a senior Justice
Department official and Abrams as assistant secretary of state for Latin
America.

U.S. officials see other parallels as well. Noriega
transformed Panama into a playground for violent, international drug
cartels while the Trump administration has accused Maduro and his
military henchmen of harboring drug traffickers, guerrillas from
Colombia and even Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group.

They
also have accused government officials together with well-connected
businessmen of stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from the state
coffers, much of it from state oil giant PDVSA, which has seen its
production plunge to a seven-decade low.

Still, charging Maduro
was no easy task. Sitting foreign leaders normally enjoy immunity from
prosecution under U.S. law and international norms.

But the U.S.
is among 60 countries that no longer consider Maduro a head of state
even if he does hold de facto power. They instead recognize Guaidó, the
head of congress, as Venezuela’s rightful leader following the
socialist’s re-election in a 2018 race marred by allegations of fraud
and an opposition boycott.

The evidence against Maduro was
collected over several years by investigators in Miami, New York,
Houston and Washington who have brought drug trafficking, foreign
bribery and money-laundering charges against several senior Venezuelan
officials, members of the military and government-connected businessmen.

Much of those probes have focused on PDVSA, which is the source
of practically all of Venezuela’s export revenue. The U.S. last year
sanctioned PDVSA, barring Americans from doing business with the oil
giant.

But to the surprise of many, Chavez’s hand-picked heir has
stubbornly clung to power, withstanding months of street protests last
year and even a U.S.-backed military revolt all the while millions of
Venezuelan migrants flee hyperinflation and widespread food shortages.

With
support on the streets for Guaidó fading, the Trump administration
raised the ante last fall, withdrawing support for a Norway-sponsored
mediation effort and extending sanctions so that even foreign companies
faced retaliation for extending Maduro a lifeline.

Separately,
Barr, echoing calls from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio,
prioritized investigations into Maduro’s inner circle, according to two
people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal Justice
Department deliberations.

The pressure to deliver, the people
said, went into overdrive around the time when Guaidó visited Washington
in February and Trump praised him as his guest at the State of the
Union address as “a very brave man, who carries with him the hopes,
dreams and aspirations of all Venezuelans.”

But the coronavirus pandemic delayed the announcement, originally scheduled for March 16, according to the people.

The
virus is likely to further distract Washington and threatens to
splinter the opposition, some of whom have expressed a willingness to
work with Maduro to stem the medical crisis. It could also give new life
to Maduro’s call for the U.S. to ease sanctions, an idea that several
European allies have also warmed to.

Frank Mora, a former Pentagon
official, said the U.S. is right to condemn Maduro and others for
repressing his people, stealing from state coffers and turning Venezuela
into a criminal state.

But he worries the indictments play more
into the emotion of Latino voters in Florida than help address the
country’s grinding crisis.

“We’re not going to go in and capture
him,” said Mora, who now heads the Latin America studies institute at
Florida International University. “This isn’t about regime change or
restoring democracy to Venezuela. It’s about electoral politics.”

The
political divide that runs deep in Venezuela was reflected Thursday on
the streets of Petare, a sweeping slum on the edge of Caracas.

A
street vendor and staunch Maduro backer, Juvenal Montilla, 60, said the
U.S. indictment was just another dangerous step by a “crazy” Trump.

“We’re
sick and tired of the United States getting into the business of
countries around the world without anyone paying any attention,”
Montilla said.

But 40-year-old taxi driver Grégorio Velásquez said
he would back the U.S. or anybody who can bring a swift end to years of
failed socialist rule.

“There’s no water, no lights, no food. How can we survive like this?” said Velásquez, 40, as he waited in line to fill up his car amid widespread shortages that have worsened during the pandemic. “Maduro has to leave immediately.”

Smith reported from Caracas, Venezuela. Associated Press writers Jim Mustian in New York and Michael Balsamo and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.