After “Large Scale Strike,” US Forces Have Captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump Says

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and wife Cilia Flores have been captured and flown out of the country, US President Donald Trump announced early Saturday, following months of military pressure on the country. The detention was part of a “large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader,” Trump said, which included multiple explosions reported on military bases in the capitol city of Caracas and the deaths of an unknown number of Venezuelan officials, military personnel, and civilians across the region.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says via X that Maduro and Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York. The Venezuelan president faces charges of “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” Bondi says.

Those charges echo a 2020 indictment handed down by US federal court that named Maduro and 14 other officials in claims that included drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. It’s unclear what charges Flores faces, as she was neither named in the 2020 announcement nor did Bondi specify any charges against her today. Nevertheless, both “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi says.

According to a statement from the Venezuelan communications ministry, the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira were also struck in the attack. The Venezuelan government has declared a state of emergency, with Venezuelan vice-president Delcy Rodríguez saying via televised statement “We do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. We demand proof of life.”

Tarek William Saab, the Attorney General of Venezuela, noted in a televised statement that the country suffered numerous losses in the attacks. “Innocent victims have been mortally wounded and others killed by this criminal terrorist attack,” he said. According to an unnamed US official who spoke with the New York Times, America did not experience any casualties in the operation.

It’s not immediately clear if Trump consulted Congress prior to the strike, which, under the War Powers Act, would likely be necessary to give him the legal power to enact a military operation such as this one on foreign soil. According to the president, he will provide additional details during an 11 a.m. ET press conference from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

This is a developing story, and will be updated.