The alleged drug operations of deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro involved the cooperation of a complex international network of actors who used false diplomatic passports, a jungle guerilla training school, private jets and crates of grenade launchers, according to a US indictment.
Mr Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were seized from the Venezuelan capital Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning, local time, during a US special forces operation.
The couple faced court in New York on Monday charged with narco-terrorism, drugs and weapons offences.
They have pleaded not guilty.
Almost a week after the US attack on Venezuelan soil that led to the couple's capture, court documents show American authorities continue to hunt the pair's associates, who they accuse of helping facilitate a multinational illegal drug trade.
This is what is known about the individuals still wanted by the US government.
'Diplomatic missions provided cover for drug shipments'
The Trump administration has accused Mr Maduro of involvement in a multi-faceted network of actors who cooperated on the shipment of up to 250 tonnes of cocaine into the US each year.
In addition to overseeing and directing individuals along the chain of alleged drug trafficking, Mr Maduro is accused of systematic corruption that fuelled narco-terrorist groups.
Between 2006 and 2008 — five years before he became Venezuelan president — Mr Maduro used his role as then-foreign affairs minister to sell diplomatic passports to known drug traffickers, the indictment alleges.
The court documents claim Mr Maduro would call the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico whenever the alleged traffickers needed to move the profits of their drug shipments back to Venezuela.
Mr Maduro would allegedly advise the embassy of a "diplomatic mission" arriving by private jet, so the aircraft was not searched.
And while traffickers met with the Venezuelan ambassador to Mexico, the aircraft was allegedly loaded with money.
The indictment also alleged Ms Flores accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to broker meetings in 2007 between a "large-scale drug trafficker" and then-National Anti-Drug Office director Néstor Reverol Torres.
Those meetings allegedly resulted in an agreement to facilitate the safe passage of plane loads of cocaine in exchange for monthly bribes and payments of $US100,000 ($148,820) for each flight — of which Ms Flores is accused of receiving a portion.
Maduro's right-hand man 'coordinated drugs to Mexico'
In the indictment, Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello Rondón is described by US authorities as "one of the most powerful officials" in the country.
He is the vice-president of Mr Maduro's ruling Socialist Party in Venezuela and has held various National Assembly roles, which the US government claims helped Mr Maduro illegitimately hold power during his presidency.
Mr Cabello is a fierce supporter of "Chavismo" — the political ideology that focuses mostly on state control of national assets, forged by Mr Maduro's predecessor, former military lieutenant colonel and socialist president Hugo Chavez.
He also served as Mr Chavez's chief of staff in 2001 and is known to have taken part in the former president's attempted 1992 coup to overthrow the country's government.
US authorities allege Mr Cabello abused his official positions within the nation's government to help facilitate the flow of illicit drugs from Colombia through Venezuela to Mexico, dating as far back as 2003.
The US government continues to offer a $US25 million ($37.2 million) reward for his arrest, and claims he "participated in a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy between the Cartel of the Suns, a Venezuelan drug-trafficking organisation comprised of high-ranking Venezuelan officials, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)."
Between 2003 and 2011, Mr Cabello allegedly helped the Zetas, a north-east Mexican drug cartel later known as the Cartel del Noreste, move drugs through Venezuela.
[DW MAP]The indictment claims the cartel worked with Colombian traffickers to dispatch up to 20 tonnes of drugs at a time in containers held onboard ships that left Venezuelan ports destined for the US.
In 2006, Mr Cabello was alleged to have paired up with then-director of the Venezuelan military intelligence agency Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios and National Guard Captain Vassyly Kotosky Villaroel Ramirez to coordinate a plane-load of drugs to Mexico.
More than 5.5 tonnes of cocaine was transported in five vans to a Venezuelan presidential hangar at the Simón Bolívar International Airport in the city of Maiquetía, north of Caracas, according to the indictment.
It was then loaded onto a DC-9 private jet and flown to the Mexican city of Campeche, where it was seized by authorities.
Mr Villaroel later told Venezuelan drug traffickers who worked on the failed shipment they would need to pay Mr Cabello bribe money to ensure they were not arrested for their part in the operation, court documents allege.
Authorities allege Mr Cabello was then paid about $US2.5 million ($3.72 million).
The indictment also claims that from 2013 onwards, Mr Cabello acted at the direction of Mr Maduro to facilitate and cover up drug shipments. In September of that year, French authorities seized about 1.3 tonnes of cocaine that had landed in Paris from Maiquetía.
Mr Maduro allegedly later told Mr Cabello and Mr Carvajal they should have used "other well-established drug routes and locations to dispatch cocaine" while undetected, according to the court documents.
In the days following Mr Maduro's capture, Mr Cabello formed part of the political leadership team supporting Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez to maintain power in the country.
He has been indicted on counts of alleged narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, and possession of machine guns.
Venezuela's link to Colombian rebels
Ramón Rodríguez Chacín was Venezuela's Interior and Justice Minister between 2002 and 2008, and the governor of the state of Guárico, south of Caracas between 2012 and 2017.
He is listed in the US indictment for allegedly helping to continue the Venezuelan regime's connection to FARC in Colombia to protect the ongoing flow of drugs.
The court documents allege that in 2008 he owned a large estate in the state of Barinas, the domestic neighbour of Guárico, "which contained a large FARC encampment and training school, with approximately 200 armed FARC members carrying automatic rifles at any given time".
"During this time, Rodríguez Chacín accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes," the indictment said.
In 2007, the Venezuelan government is also accused of delivering four crates of weapons, including 20 grenades and two grenade launchers, to FARC, the indictment said.
Venezuela's Barinas state is located about 260 kilometres from the Colombian border and its terrain is mostly dense jungle.
The FARC are a guerilla dissident group that have consistently sought to overthrow the Colombian government by committing acts of assault, assassinations and hostage kidnappings, the US government says.
The court documents allege that Mr Rodríguez held various discussions between 2008 and 2019 with Mr Carvajal about the trafficking of multi-tonne shipments of cocaine.
After Mr Maduro's rise to power in 2013, Mr Rodríguez allegedly met with the president and a "key FARC leader" multiple times at the presidential Miraflores Palace in Caracas and his Fuerte Tiuna military compound.
"Rodríguez Chacín was assigned by Maduro Moros to provide the FARC and [Venezuelan rebel group] ELN with protection and support," the court documents said.
He has been indicted on counts of alleged narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, and possession of machine guns.
Maduro's son 'went on drug load trips to Margarita Island'
Nicolás Maduro Guerra, 35, is deposed president Maduro's only son and was appointed by him into the Venezuelan constituent assembly in 2017. He is currently a member of the country's National Assembly.
The indictment described him as "a corrupt Venezuelan politician" who has two nicknames: "Nicolásito" — which translates to Little Nicolás — and "The Prince".
He's accused of using some of the assets of his father's regime to contribute to illegal drugs networks operating in Venezuela from 2014 onwards.
Over the course of a year he was allegedly invited by a National Guard captain to visit Margarita Island, a Venezuelan isle located about 40km off the northern coast of the mainland from the state of Sucre.
The court documents claim he flew on a Falcon 900 private jet operated by state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) twice a month, and that the National Guard captain would organise "hotels, transportation, women and food" for his stay.
During his stay, the PDVSA plane would be loaded "with large packages wrapped in tape that the captain understood were drugs", the indictment alleges.
The US also claims Mr Maduro Guerra said on one occasion "that the plane could go wherever it wanted, including the United States".
In 2017, the president's son allegedly expanded his sights into the US by working with drug traffickers to ship "hundreds of kilograms" there.
In one instance, he allegedly arranged a 500-kilogram shipment to be sent to Miami in a cargo container but had to relocate its distribution to New York City because the drug was "low-quality cocaine" and unable to be sold in Florida.
The indictment also claimed that by 2020, Mr Maduro Guerra had formed a plan with FARC to continue the movement of large quantities of cocaine into the US and had paid the rebel group with weapons at leat until this year.
Mr Maduro Guerra has been indicted on counts of alleged cocaine importation and possession of machine guns.
'Prison gang provided protection for drug operations'
Since his inauguration in January last year, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that deposed president Maduro helped manage and lead the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) and therefore funded another drug network known as Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Mr Trump argues that TdA's drug trafficking operations pose an unacceptable threat to the lives of Americans.
The cartel formed in a Venezuelan prison in 2014 and developed into a criminal enterprise in the country.
In February last year, the US State Department acted on an executive order signed by Mr Trump to designate TdA as a foreign terrorist organisation.
"Tren de Aragua members engage in 'diverse criminal activities', including money laundering, drug and human trafficking, kidnapping, organized retail crime, extortion, and murder," a report filed on the cartel in the US House of Representatives says.
"Tren de Aragua's presence has spread throughout the United States and has notable criminal impact on cities across the country."
The indictment against Mr Maduro has, for the first time, explained the Trump administration's allegation of a connection between him and the cartel.
The court documents show US authorities believe the link is a man named Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, known by his alias Niño Guerrero, who is accused of leading TdA for more than a decade.
Despite being imprisoned, in 2019 Mr Guerrero allegedly offered to use TdA members to escort the shipments of a drug trafficker — who he believed to have been working for the Maduro regime — into Venezuela.
He said he could facilitate the movement because the gang owned storage compartments located on a beach in the Venezuelan state of Aragua that he described as "cradles", the indictment said.
Years earlier, Mr Guerrero is alleged to have worked with and provided armed protection for major Venezuelan drug traffickers who worked to ship "thousands of kilograms" of drugs into Mexico, other Central American countries and the US.
He is also accused of arming individuals between 2008 and 2009 with automatic rifles such as AK-47s, MP5s and other weapons, including grenades, in exchange for cash payments or portions of the drug.
Mr Guerrero has been indicted on counts of alleged cocaine importation and possession of machine guns.
