Did Obama or Biden put a bounty on Maduro
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Executive summary
The United States placed reward offers for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Nicolás Maduro during the Biden administration in 2025, with an initial increase to $25 million reported in January 2025 and a later increase to $50 million announced by the State Department and Justice Department in August 2025 [1] [2]. There is no reporting in the provided sources that President Obama placed a bounty on Maduro; earlier U.S. criminal charges against Maduro date to the Trump administration in 2020, but those are separate from the reward offers [3].
1. The concrete record: who officially offered rewards, and when
Official U.S. government records in the reporting show a sequence of formal reward offers under the Narcotics Rewards Program: news outlets reported a $25 million reward announced in January 2025 (BBC) and the Department of State and Department of Justice publicly announced an increase to “up to $50 million” in August 2025 [1] [2]. The State Department’s wanted poster and press release explicitly list Maduro with a reward up to $50 million and characterize the action as part of U.S. narcotics-law enforcement efforts, making clear these offers were formal U.S. government reward programs rather than informal political rhetoric [4] [2].
2. Separating indictments, bounties and political eras
The Justice Department’s criminal indictment of Maduro noted in reporting dates back to March 2020 and was issued during the Trump administration, which is distinct from the later reward announcements in 2025 [3]. The sources make a clear distinction between those indictments, which initiated criminal charges, and later reward increases under the Narcotics Rewards Program that were meant to support efforts to locate or apprehend Maduro [3] [2]. The available reporting does not attribute any reward offer to the Obama administration; Obama-era reporting is absent from the provided material on bounties for Maduro.
3. How administrations framed the reward — law enforcement vs. political pressure
The State Department framed the reward increases as part of narcotics enforcement and as a tool to elevate pressure on Maduro’s government, with spokespeople describing the moves as consistent with counter-narcotics policy and solidarity with Venezuelan opposition claims [2] [5]. Media coverage likewise links the bounties to U.S. characterizations of Maduro as involved in large-scale drug trafficking and organized-crime networks, framing rewards as part of legal and diplomatic pressure rather than a purely military or political play [6] [7].
4. Opposition, precedent and the later military operation
Reporting after the 2026 capture notes that the capture itself was carried out under the Trump administration’s military operation and that the operation followed months of pressure that included the reward offers [8] [7]. Critics cited legal objections and international-law concerns regarding forcible capture of a sitting head of state, while U.S. officials defended the actions by pointing to indictments and the reward program as law-enforcement instruments [9] [8]. The sources indicate a chain of events in which 2025 reward offers were one element of a broader U.S. campaign that culminated in the 2026 operation; they do not show Obama involvement in placing rewards [2] [8].
5. What the record does not show and remaining caveats
The reporting provided does not include any source asserting that President Obama placed a bounty on Nicolás Maduro, and it documents reward announcements during 2025 attributed to the Biden administration and U.S. agencies [1] [2]. Where the public record links criminal indictments to earlier years, those indictments were filed under the Trump administration [3]. If there are additional internal records, earlier covert offers, or contemporaneous policy memos not included in the supplied sources, this analysis cannot confirm them; the conclusions here rest solely on the cited public reporting and official State Department materials [2] [4].