US accuses Maduro and Cilia Flores of torture and human rights violations in Venezuela
A federal grand jury in New York expanded charges against Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, adding conspiracy to commit torture to previous drug trafficking accusations.
Federal grand jury in New York expands charges against Maduro and Cilia Flores for systematic torture
A federal grand jury in New York formalised on 8 October a reformulated indictment against Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro for directing for more than 25 years a system of torture and human rights violations, according to infobae.com. The new instrument—identified as case S5 11 Cr. 205 before the Federal Court of the Southern District of New York—constitutes the fifth charge accumulated against Maduro in that court and adds to previous narcoterrorism and drug trafficking offences the conspiracy to commit torture, in violation of Title 18 of the United States Code.
The original indictment for narcoterrorism and drug trafficking was presented in March 2020. In December 2025 it was extended with charges against Flores de Maduro. Both were detained on 3 January 2026.
A repressive system built from 1999
The grand jury maintains that between 1999 and 2025 thousands of Venezuelans were harassed, arbitrarily detained, tortured or killed by agents of the Venezuelan state with the purpose of ensuring Maduro's continuance in power. The repression intensified, according to the document, during periods of greater political instability.
The text describes Maduro as the direct conductor of the repressive apparatus: he ordered which persons should be detained and tortured, received periodic reports on the condition of prisoners and on occasions proposed specific methods. Upon learning that a detainee refused to speak, the leader made a signal with his hands—simulating squeezing something—and said "squeeze them harder", according to the document.
Flores de Maduro, for her part, is identified as the architect of the system: she helped design it and ordered that individuals be tortured to protect the illegal activities of members of her family.
The indictment also identifies two high-ranking Venezuelan officials—referred to as CC-1 and CC-2—who would have carried out or directly coordinated the torments, and a third, CC-3, who developed torture methods presented to Maduro for his approval.
Methods documented case by case
The document details with precision the techniques employed. A Venezuelan military officer identified as Victim-2 was kidnapped in November 2013 on Maduro's orders and subjected over two days to approximately 20 electric shocks with live cable, blows to legs, back and head, suspension by hands and feet until losing consciousness, and simulated drowning on approximately 30 occasions. He was subsequently transferred to a camp controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombian territory, where interrogators threatened to kidnap and rape his daughter if he did not confess. Maduro, according to the document, requested to see video of that forced confession and ordered it distributed among other government officials.
In the case of Victim-4, detained in January 2018, CC-1 threatened to kill the detainee's young son if she did not reveal the whereabouts of a dissident, describing the child's hair colour to demonstrate that he knew his identity. Agents applied electric shocks to the sides, feet and genitals whilst CC-1 remained nearby. That same dissident was subsequently killed in a security forces operation, after CC-1 transmitted Maduro's orders to execute him.
US citizens among the victims
The indictment also records cases of United States citizens tortured in Venezuela. Victim-7, a United States citizen detained in January 2022 upon entering the country, was transferred to Boleíta Norte prison, where he received electric shocks to arms, legs and genitals, was asphyxiated, beaten, deprived of food and water, and injected with a substance that caused him convulsions. CC-3 personally witnessed one of the sessions, laughed and mocked the victim whilst being electrocuted. The victim remained imprisoned for approximately eight and a half months before being released in October 2022.
Victim-9, another United States citizen detained in January 2025, received blows to the face, head and abdomen every half hour for two consecutive days, which caused him permanent eye injury. He was in custody for nearly a year. At the moment of his release in January 2026, CC-3 warned him and other United States citizens that they should not state that the Venezuelan government had mistreated them.
Drug trafficking: the Cartel of the Suns and the FARC
The reformulated indictment takes up and expands previous charges for drug trafficking. According to the grand jury, from 2006 Maduro and Flores de Maduro used members of their security escorts to supervise the regular transport of cocaine shipments of between 1,000 and 2,000 kilogrammes, with coverage from the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB). This scheme, called the Cartel of the Suns, linked the Venezuelan government with the FARC, the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas—later reconverted into the Northeast Cartel (CDN)—and the Aragua Train.
Shortly after the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013, Maduro and Flores de Maduro participated in a meeting with the FARC leadership to settle a drug trafficking debt. As part of payment, Maduro agreed to sell anti-personnel mines and other weapons to the guerrilla group, knowing that this would increase their military capacity against Colombia. The sales continued until around 2015.
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the state-owned oil company, also appears in the indictment as an instrument of the criminal scheme, although the original document from the source does not develop that section in detail.
Source: Google News VE — Crime