What evidence have U.S. prosecutors filed in court to support the narco‑terrorism charges against Nicolás Maduro?
Executive summary
U.S. prosecutors have filed superseding indictments and public statements that allege Nicolás Maduro and associates ran a decades‑long narco‑terrorism partnership that sheltered, protected and facilitated shipment of tons of cocaine to the United States, working with FARC dissidents and criminal gangs and using Venezuelan state resources and military protection to do so [1] [2] [3]. Those filings list alleged overt acts—drug shipments, use of clandestine airstrips and commercial airports, chartered flights, corrupt official protection, and weapons offenses—but they are prosecutorial allegations in court documents and not yet proved convictions [2] [4] [3].
1. The formal court filings and who filed them
The central pieces of evidence publicly filed by U.S. prosecutors are two superseding indictments unsealed in the Southern District of New York and related Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney press releases that lay out the government's theory of the case and list alleged overt acts spanning years [3] [1]. The DOJ and Manhattan U.S. Attorney framed the charges as narco‑terrorism, cocaine importation and weapons offenses tied to Maduro and a network of current and former Venezuelan officials and FARC leaders, and those filings serve as the government's operative allegations in U.S. federal court [1] [3].
2. Allegations about scale: “thousands of tons” and distribution networks
The superseding indictment characterizes the scheme as a “relentless campaign” that resulted in the distribution of “thousands of tons of cocaine” to the United States, asserting that Maduro and others provided law‑enforcement cover and logistical support for transport routes northward [2]. Prosecutors say that this scale was enabled by corruption of Venezuelan institutions and that proceeds enriched officials and benefited violent narco‑terrorist groups [3] [2]. These statements appear in the indictment text and DOJ materials as claims supporting narco‑terrorism and drug‑trafficking counts [2] [1].
3. Specific operational allegations: routes, airstrips, vessels and chartered flights
Court papers allege concrete methods: shipments via fishing boats, container ships, clandestine airstrips and commercial airports, protected by corrupt military and government officials, and the chartering of private jets by intermediaries tied to Maduro’s circle for campaign travel—an activity prosecutors say violated sanctions and helped the operation [5] [4] [3]. The indictment also singles out collaboration with FARC dissidents and named traffickers and claims that gangs like Tren de Aragua were integrated into or benefited from the trafficking system [5] [6].
4. Weapons and “narco‑terrorism” framing
Beyond drug importation counts, prosecutors included allegations that defendants used and possessed machine guns and destructive devices “during and in relation to” narco‑terrorism and cocaine conspiracies, which underpins the elevated “narco‑terrorism” charge carrying higher mandatory minimums [1] [3]. The government’s narrative—repeated in press statements—is that cocaine was used as a weapon to “flood” the United States and to sustain insurgent and paramilitary partners, a framing that links drug trafficking to terrorism‑style conduct in the filings [1] [3].
5. Investigative sources and interagency work cited by prosecutors
Press materials and government releases state that investigations involved ICE Homeland Security Investigations, DEA and task forces with probes in New York and Miami, and that indictments resulted from multi‑agency work, which the DOJ highlights to support the evidentiary basis of the allegations [4] [1]. Publicly available filings reference named co‑conspirators, timeline of overt acts and transactions intended to give the court a factual predicate for charging decisions [3] [2].
6. What the filings do not prove in public and competing claims
The documents are prosecutorial allegations in indictments and DOJ statements; they are not verdicts, and public reporting notes Maduro’s denials of the charges [7]. The indictment’s claims about scale, routes and corruption are detailed in court language (e.g., “thousands of tons,” named overt acts), but underlying source materials—witness testimony, intercepted communications, financial records or physical seizures cited by prosecutors—are summarized in the filings rather than reproduced in full in public press releases, and those underlying proofs will be tested in court [2] [3] [1].