Federal prosecutors have unsealed a new indictment charging former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores with conspiracy to commit torture, including against U.S. citizens, adding to a stack of narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking counts already pending in Manhattan federal court.
Daily Mail reporting describes the charging document as alleging the couple “sat atop” a “violent power structure” that authorized torture of people viewed as threats to Maduro’s hold on power. Both defendants remain in U.S. custody after an early-January overnight raid at their Caracas residence and have pleaded not guilty to every count.
The fresh charges land months after U.S. authorities seized the pair, flew them to New York, and presented them in Manhattan federal court. They underscore a sustained effort to hold Maduro accountable for alleged repression and cocaine pipelines that long reached American streets.
Court papers detail a system of repression that relied on violence against political opponents. Prosecutors say that system included arbitrary detention and the torture of detainees, among them United States citizens.
Fox News reported the superseding indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, noting Maduro originally faced narco-terrorism conspiracy and related counts in a 2011 indictment unsealed in 2020. The new count of conspiracy to commit torture sits alongside those earlier drug and weapons allegations.
The charging document lists specific methods. One passage states:
“That torture included electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture, such as threats to harm and kill victims’ families, including children”
Prosecutors further allege Maduro used the presidency to oversee repression that protected both his political grip and the illegal activities of associates. Department of Justice documents already place him under charges tied to narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking, and illegal weapons offenses.
The New York Post added that a federal judge denied Flores’s bid for house arrest, citing flight risk and the gravity of the accusations. The judge remarked that jail is not pleasant, yet the seriousness of the allegations left no basis for release at this stage. Trial is set for 2027.
U.S. authorities took Maduro and Flores in a shock overnight raid at their Caracas home in early January. They arrived in the United States early on January 6 and were transported in handcuffs to federal court in Manhattan. Both have been held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since then.
At his January arraignment Maduro declared, “I’m still the president of my country.” As officers led him out he added, “I’m a prisoner of war.” He has also labeled the arrest and removal a “kidnapping.”
President Donald Trump and administration officials rejected that framing. They described the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation.” The president also stated openly that the military action to remove Maduro was in part an effort to secure some of oil-rich Venezuela’s stock, an interest that later appeared in related energy discussions, including when Trump outlined a U.S. majority stake in Venezuelan oil reserves.
Photos dated June 25 show Maduro inside the Brooklyn facility wearing a gray tracksuit and white sneakers, appearing relaxed and even smiling while shackled. In the months after arraignment he has slimmed down yet frequently looks at ease in the images released from custody.
Before the torture conspiracy count, Maduro already faced charges of conspiring to smuggle drugs into the United States. Just The News noted the newly unsealed indictment layers alleged human-rights abuses on top of those cocaine-conspiracy counts. The expansion tracks a pattern of federal action against networks that moved narcotics north while the regime crushed dissent at home.
Prosecutors tie the couple to the Cartel de los Soles and alliances with groups such as the FARC and ELN. Breitbart reported that the indictment casts the torture as a tool used to “repress and punish political opposition, silence dissent and perceived dissent” and preserve power. Flores, prosecutors say, helped build the system and ordered torture to shield the illegal activities of family members.
The 2024 Venezuelan election, in which Maduro declared himself the winner, drew international and opposition challenges. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has long stood against the regime; earlier mass protests, including a 2019 rally, underscored the depth of resistance inside the country.
American accountability efforts have also reached Maduro’s foreign facilitators. One recent case saw a former congressman sentenced to a decade for secret lobbying on Maduro’s behalf, illustrating how the regime’s reach extended into U.S. political circles.
Both Maduro and Flores have entered not-guilty pleas on all charges. They remain detained pending the 2027 trial date. The superseding indictment keeps the case centered in Manhattan federal court, where prosecutors continue to build the dual narrative of drug pipelines and systematic abuse of detainees.
Maduro still insists he is Venezuela’s rightful leader and a wartime captive. The Justice Department documents and the unsealed charging papers present a different picture: a longtime strongman who, prosecutors say, authorized electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, starvation, and threats against children to protect power and criminal enterprises.
The raid itself remains defended by the administration as targeted law enforcement rather than the kidnapping Maduro claims. Whatever the eventual verdict, the unsealed counts put the alleged torture methods and the protection of drug routes squarely before a U.S. jury.
Accountability finally caught up with a regime that treated American citizens and Venezuelan dissidents as expendable. Soft-on-dictators policies never did.
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