U.S. Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, requesting an update on what legal actions the U.S. Department of Justice and State Department have taken toward the arrest and extradition of Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro since 2021.
Maduro and his regime are also key allies of Iran’s Islamic regime. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi described their relationship during his first official visit to Caracas in June as a “strategic relation” with “common interests, views,” and “enemies,” a clear allusion to the United States.
Iran and Venezuela’s cooperation goes beyond simple anti-U.S. shared sentiments, spanning nearly two decades of extensive cooperation that was expanded after both countries signed a wide 20-year cooperation agreement in 2022 during Maduro’s official visit to Tehran.
Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled Venezuela since 2013 following the death of late dictator Hugo Chávez, was indicted by U.S. prosecutors in March 2020 on narco-terrorism charges alongside other members of his authoritarian regime. Prosecutors accusing them of working with the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to use cocaine as a weapon to “flood” the United States.
Since then, the United States has maintained an active $15 million bounty for information leading to Maduro’s arrest and/or conviction. Similar bounties were placed on other high ranking members of the rogue socialist Venezuelan regime.
Maduro is also believed to be one of the top leading members of the Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”), an intercontinental cocaine trafficking organization run by members of the Venezuelan military and by members of the Maduro regime.
Last week, as part of a broad international investigation known as “NarcoFiles: The New Criminal Order,” a report published by the Miami Herald detailed how the Cartel of the Suns is able to move upwards of 350 metric tons of cocaine per year to the United States, Europe, and other destinations, having forged alliances with Colombian drug trafficking organizations and Mexican cartels.
“We are deeply concerned about the ability of Nicolas Maduro, a fugitive of U.S. justice, to elude arrest and extradition despite numerous international trips since January 2021,” Sen. Risch and Grassley’s letter read. “We ask that you [Attorney General Garland and Sec. of State Blinken] share with Congress what, if any, legal actions your departments have taken to seek the arrest and extradition of Mr. Maduro since January 2021.”
The letter explains that, since January 2021, Maduro has taken at least three trips to countries that have extradition treaties with the United States. Maduro traveled to Mexico in September 2021 to participate in the 6th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a 33-country regional bloc.
In May, Maduro traveled to Brazil to meet with to meet with radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after both countries restored diplomatic ties. In October, Maduro traveled to Mexico again to participate in a “migrant summit” hosted by the nation’s far-left President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – despite the Maduro regime causing what is now widely considered to be the worst migrant crisis in the region, with over 7.7 million migrants having so far fled from the socialist regime, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Over the past two years, Maduro has also made other travels to countries that do not have an extradition treaty with the United States, such as Saudi Arabia in June and Egypt in November 2022. During his visit to Egypt, Maduro shook hands with U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, an interaction that Biden Administration officials claimed at the time was “unplanned.”
In January, Maduro canceled his participation in CELAC’s 7th summit of Heads of State and Government, hosted by Argentina, after severe backlash from the Argentine opposition right-wing parties and politicians, as well as from members of the Venezuelan diaspora living in Argentina that fled his socialist regime.
“Failure to enforce the U.S. indictment of Nicolas Maduro prolongs the illegal immigration and illicit drug crisis threatening the security of the United States and the Western Hemisphere at large. Therefore, we ask that you inform us by November 26, 2023, what, if any, legal actions you took to seek the arrest and extradition of Nicolas Maduro during his international travels since January 2021,” the U.S. Senators’ letter concluded.
