Caracas (Venezuela) | Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro arrived in the United States to face criminal charges after being captured in an audacious nighttime military operation that President Donald Trump said would set the US up to “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.
Maduro landed late Saturday afternoon at a small airport in New York following the middle-of-the-night operation that extracted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital, Caracas — an act that Maduro's government called “imperialist.” The couple faces US charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela's autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval. Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country's rightful leader as her nation's high court named her interim president.
Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Rodriguez, who didn't give a number. Trump said some US forces were injured, but none was killed.
Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro's capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country's oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.
After arriving at a small airport in New York City's northern suburbs, Maduro was flown by helicopter to Manhattan, where a convoy of law enforcement vehicles, including an armored car, was waiting to whisk him to a nearby US Drug Enforcement Administration office.
A video posted on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through that office by two DEA agents grasping his arms.
Trump says US will run the country'
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The Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the US. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.
Trump claimed the US government would help lead the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate visible signs of that. Venezuelan state TV aired pro-Maduro propaganda and broadcast live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.
“We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. He boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The US government does not recognize Maduro as the country's leader.
The Trump administration spent months building up American forces in the region and carrying out attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean for allegedly ferrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US campaign began in September.
Early morning attack
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Taking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 surrender and seizure of Panama leader Manuel Antonio Noriega following a US invasion, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday. Trump said the US turned off “almost all of the lights" in Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.
“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”
Multiple explosions rang out that morning, and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro's government accused the United States of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets. The explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard.
Restrictions imposed by the US government on airspace around Venezuela and the Caribbean expired early Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, an announcement that suggested any further immediate major US military action was unlikely. “Airlines are informed, and will update their schedules quickly,” he posted.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodriguez would take over from Maduro. Rodriguez, however, stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela's high court ordered that she become interim president.
“There is only one president in Venezuela," Rodriguez said, “and his name is Nicolas Maduro Moros.”
Some streets in Caracas fill up
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Venezuela's ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.
Maduro took over when Chavez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
Venezuela's capital remained unusually quiet Sunday with few vehicles moving around and convenience stores, gas stations and other businesses closed. A road typically filled with runners, cyclists and other fitness enthusiasts on Sundays only had a handful of people working out the day after Maduro was deposed.
The presidential palace was guarded by armed civilians and members of the military. At a nearby plaza, only a street sweeper and a soldier stood, and across the street, a church remained close for a second day in a row.
Caracas resident David Leal arrived to the lot where he parks vehicles for a living only to quickly realize that he would likely not see any clients for a second day.
“People are still shaken,” Leal, 77, said.
Questions of legality
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Whether the United States violated any laws, international or otherwise, was still a question early Sunday. “There are a number of international legal concepts which the United States might have broken by capturing Maduro,” said Ilan Katz, an international law analyst.
Pope Leo XIV, who last month had expressed concern about growing US threats of military intervention in Venezuela, raised alarms during his Sunday noon blessing and said the good of the Venezuelan people must prevail above everything else. History's first US pope demanded an end to violence and for Venezuela's sovereignty to be guaranteed.
In New York, the UN Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on US operations in Venezuela on Monday morning.
Lawmakers from both American political parties have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the US attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling. Congress has not approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on "its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”
New York | The Brooklyn jail holding Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is a facility so troubled, some judges have refused to send people there even as it has housed such famous inmates as music stars R. Kelly and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Opened in the early 1990s, the Metropolitan Detention Centre, or MDC Brooklyn, currently houses about 1,300 inmates.
It's the routine landing spot for people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, holding alleged gangsters and drug traffickers alongside some people accused of white-collar crimes.
A throng of Venezuelan expatriates, many draped in flags, gathered on the sidewalks outside the jail Saturday night to celebrate Maduro's capture. The crowd cheered as the law enforcement motorcade, believed to be carrying the deposed leader and his wife, arrived at the jail.
Maduro is not the first president of a country to be locked up there.
Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, was imprisoned at MDC Brooklyn while he was on trial for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US Convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison, Hernandez was pardoned and freed by President Donald Trump in December.
Current detainees include the co-founder of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, and Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Past inmates have included crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Located next to a shopping mall in a waterfront industrial area and within sight of the Statue of Liberty, the jail has been described, at its worst, as a “hell on earth” and an “ongoing tragedy.”
Detainees and their lawyers have long complained about rampant violence. Two prisoners were killed by other inmates in 2024, and jail workers have been charged with accepting bribes or providing contraband.
During the winter of 2019, a power outage plunged the facility and its inmates into a cold darkness for a week.
Recently, however, the federal Bureau of Prisons says it has worked to improve conditions.
The facility added correctional and medical staff, remedying more than 700 backlogged maintenance requests and answering judges' concerns. Improvements were also made to electrical and plumbing lines, food service and heating and air conditioning systems.
In addition to the physical upgrades, federal authorities have tried to crack down on crime inside the lockup. Last March, 23 inmates were charged with offences ranging from smuggling weapons in a Doritos bag to the stabbing of a man convicted in the killing of hip-hop legend Jam Master Jay.
“In short, MDC Brooklyn is safe for the inmates and staff,” the Bureau of Prisons said in September. The inmate population also decreased from 1,580 as of January 2024, which, it said, led to a “substantial decrease” in crime and contraband.
While there, Maduro is likely to see some familiar faces if he is allowed out of the isolated quarters where he will initially be housed.
One is co-defendant Hugo Carvajal, the former Venezuelan spy chief who broke ranks with Maduro in 2019 and has indicated that he wants to cooperate with US authorities.
There is also Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, an alleged member of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang who was arrested last year in New York on firearms charges. Zambrano-Pacheco was among those caught on security video terrorising residents at an apartment complex in a Denver suburb, an incident that Trump seized on during his presidential campaign.
The MDC has drawn more scrutiny since 2021, when the Bureau of Prisons closed its other New York City jail — the Metropolitan Correctional Centre — after Jeffrey Epstein's suicide there highlighted its lax security, crumbling infrastructure and dangerous, squalid conditions.
