Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and wife Cilia Flores have appeared in a New York federal court to plead not guilty on drug trafficking and weapons charges.
The couple were seized from Venezuela's capital Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning local time in a stunning US special forces operation.
It has triggered a debate on whether US breached international law.
The US has justified the operation by arguing that Mr Maduro and his wife had breached domestic law.
"The United States arrested a narco-trafficker who is now going to face trial in the United States in accordance with the rule of law for the crimes he has committed against our people for 15 years," said US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz.
So what is Venezuela's role in the global cocaine trade, and what are Mr Maduro and Ms Flores alleged to have done?
Venezuela a 'safe haven' for cocaine traffickers
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in its 2025 World Drug Report, estimated global illegal production of cocaine was 3,708 tons in 2023 — a new high.
Almost all of it is produced in three South American countries — Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
It's then transported by boat and aircraft around the world — primarily to the US and Europe.
The Justice Department's indictment, unsealed on Saturday, alleges that Venezuela's role has been to facilitate the cocaine reaching its destination countries.
It says that since about 1999, Venezuela has become a "safe haven" for drug traffickers.
"The maritime shipments were shipped north from Venezuela's coastline using go-fast vessels, fishing boats, and container ships," it says.
"Air shipments were often dispatched from clandestine airstrips, typically made of dirt or grass, and also from commercial airports under the control of corrupt government and military officials."
However, experts say the vast majority of cocaine makes it way north via the Pacific not by the Caribbean.
The indictment cites US State Department estimates that by about 2020, between 200 and 250 tons of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela annually.
Ray Donovan is a former chief of operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration who was involved with bringing an earlier indictment against Mr Maduro in 2020, during the first Trump presidency.
"We've wanted Maduro since 2020," he told ABC News Radio.
Mr Donovan alleged the Maduro administration had collaborated with Colombian guerilla groups that manufactured cocaine.
"That cocaine was produced and smuggled in through Venezuela and then up to the coast, the northern coast of Venezuela, where it was then shipped into places like the Dominican Republic," he said.
From there, it would go to the US, European countries including the Netherlands or Spain or even West Africa.
"So it was really part of the major transportation routes for the Colombians," he said.
"Now, going back 10 years ago, they were also flying Venezuelan aircraft from that same area into [Central American countries] like Honduras and Guatemala, destined for Mexico, destined for the US, via that route as well."
The indictment makes no mention of fentanyl — the leading cause of illicit drug-related deaths in the US.
Mr Donovan alleged the Venezuelan government was not directly involved with fentanyl but worked with Mexican cartels that did produce the drug.
"So it's part of a much bigger conspiracy," he said.
What are the specific allegations against Maduro?
Mr Maduro and Ms Flores have been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
The 25-page Justice Department indictment alleges that Mr Maduro, his wife, his son Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra and three others "engaged in a relentless campaign of cocaine trafficking" providing "law enforcement cover and logistical support" for the transportation of cocaine through Venezuela.
This had resulted in the "distribution of thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States".
It says the defendants "partnered with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world", including Colombia's FARK and ELN, Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and Zetas and Tren de Aragua in Venezuela.
"[Mr Maduro] participates in, perpetuates, and protects a culture of corruption in which powerful Venezuelan elites enrich themselves through drug trafficking and the protection of their partner drug traffickers," it says.
"The profits of that illegal activity flow to corrupt rank-and-file civilian, military, and intelligence officials, who operate in a patronage system run by those at the top, referred to as the Cartel de Los Soles or Cartel of the Suns, a reference to the sun insignia affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials."
The indictment says the criminal conduct occurred "regularly and repeatedly" but details a number of specific instances.
While Venezuela's minister of foreign affairs, the indictment says Mr Maduro sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and facilitated diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela.
For more than a decade until 2015, Mr Maduro and his wife allegedly worked together to traffic cocaine, much of which had previously been seized by Venezuelan law enforcement, with the assistance of the military.
It says the couple maintained "state-sponsored gangs known as colectivos" to facilitate and protect this trafficking operation and ordered "kidnappings, beatings, and murders against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation".
Those murdered allegedly included a local drug boss in Caracas.
The accusations solely against Ms Flores include that she accepted "hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes" in 2007 to arrange a meeting between a "large-scale drug trafficker" and Nestor Reverol Torres, the director of Venezuela's National Anti-Drug Office.
She then allegedly took an ongoing cut of bribes to Mr Reverol Torres aimed at securing the safe passage of the drugs.
Next steps for US drug enforcement
The other accused named in the indictment were Diosdado Cabello Rondón and Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, powerful current and previous members of Mr Maduro's government, and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the alleged leader of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Mr Donovan alleged the other co-conspirators still at large in Venezuela — including Mr Maduro's son — would be the US authorities' next priority.
He said a priority would also be the Mexican drug traffickers.
"To really go at where the cartels are strongest, right in Mexico, in Sinaloa and Guadalajara," he said.
The next court hearing for Mr Maduro and Ms Flores is set for March 17.
[venezuela zendesk]
