ALBAWABA- The United States has seized more than $700 million in assets linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced, as Washington doubled its bounty on the leader to a record-setting $50 million.
Bondi said the confiscated assets include two multimillion-dollar private jets, a mansion in the Dominican Republic, several luxury properties in Florida, a horse farm, nine high-end vehicles, and millions of dollars in cash and jewelry.
She described Maduro as “one of the world’s biggest drug traffickers,” alleging he leads the Cartel of the Suns, a powerful narcotics network embedded in Venezuela’s armed forces, and maintains alliances with the Tren de Aragua gang, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and other international syndicates.
According to U.S. prosecutors, Maduro rose to the cartel’s top leadership after the 2013 death of Hugo Chávez, merging its operations with the Venezuelan state to shield it from prosecution. Bondi likened his criminal network to a mafia “deeply entrenched” in the military.
The U.S. accuses Maduro of flooding the U.S. with fentanyl-laced cocaine and calls him a direct threat to national security. The doubling of the reward follows a federal indictment in New York and builds on a $25 million bounty set by the Trump administration in January.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil dismissed the accusations as “the most ridiculous smokescreen ever seen,” claiming the U.S. announcement was aimed at distracting attention from domestic controversies, including the Jeffrey Epstein case.
