The United States government has increased its bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to $50 million for information leading to his arrest or conviction on drug trafficking charges. This move marks a significant escalation in the US government’s efforts to bring Maduro to justice, doubling the previous bounty set in January at $25 million. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the reward, calling Maduro “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security”.
The US government accuses Maduro of leading a cocaine trafficking gang known as “The Cartel of the Suns,” which has shipped hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades. According to Bondi, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself. The US government has also seized over $700 million in Maduro-linked assets, including two Venezuelan government aircraft, since September last year.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil responded to the bounty, calling it “pathetic” and “the most ridiculous smokescreen we have ever seen.” Gil emphasized that “the dignity of our homeland is not for sale” and rejected the US move as a “crude political propaganda operation”. Maduro’s government has long denounced US interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.
Relations between Washington and Caracas have been deteriorating for years, with the US government refusing to recognize Maduro as the duly elected president of Venezuela since the 2018 presidential election, which the State Department called “deeply flawed”. The US has placed economic sanctions on Maduro’s government, while Maduro’s administration has accused the US of attempting to undermine its sovereignty.
If convicted, Maduro faces up to life in prison. The US government is determined to hold him accountable for his alleged crimes, with Bondi stating that “under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes”. The bounty increase is seen as a significant step in the US government’s efforts to bring Maduro to justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States government has increased its bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to $50 million for information leading to his arrest or conviction on drug trafficking charges. This move marks a significant escalation in the US government’s efforts to bring Maduro to justice, doubling the previous bounty set in January at $25 million. Attorney […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Maduro.jpg?fit=650%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15958,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15957\/revisions\/15958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}