By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@GettyImages.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife will appear before a federal judge on Monday, a spokesperson for the U.S. district court in the Southern District of New York confirmed Sunday.
Maduro and Flores arrived in New York on Saturday afternoon, hours after they were taken from their home in Caracas and transported to the USS Iwo Jima warship before being flown to New York to face criminal charges.
He is detained in Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC), which is one of the few detention centers in the U.S. with the capacity for high-security defendants.
It is known for housing other high-profile defendants like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Luigi Mangione, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Ghislaine Maxwell.
The U.S. is accusing the South American leader of conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and to import cocaine. He is also accused of possession of and conspiracy to possess “Machineguns and Destructive Devices,” according to the indictment unsealed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi said.
The charges appear to be the same as those that were filed in a 2020 indictment of Maduro and several key aides.
Maduro has in the past denied the accusations against him.
Maduro rose to prominence under the leadership of left-wing President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, succeeded Chávez and has been president since 2013.
During the 26 years that Chávez and Maduro have been in power, their party has got control of key institutions including the National Assembly, much of the judiciary, and the electoral council.
In 2024, Maduro was declared winner of the presidential election, even though voting tallies collected by the opposition suggested that its candidate, Edmundo González, had won by a landslide.
González had replaced the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, on the ballot after she was barred from running for office.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.
Machado defied a travel ban and made her way to Oslo in December to collect the award after months in hiding.
She said that she planned to return to Venezuela, a move which would put her at risk of arrest by the Venezuelan authorities, who have declared her a “fugitive”.