NEW YORK/CARACAS, (Reuters) – Two of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s relatives have been indicted in the United States for cocaine smuggling, according to court papers yesterday, following an international sting that Venezuela cast as an “imperialist” attack.
The charge against the nephews of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, follows announcements earlier this year of other U.S. investigations into alleged drugs and money-laundering crimes linked to Venezue-lan officials and state institutions.
The suspects, Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, 30, and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 29, were charged in a one-count indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan.
They were arrested in Haiti and flown to New York on Tuesday, people familiar with the matter said. They were expected to appear in court later on Thursday.
Relations between the United States and Venezuela have long been fraught. However, a U.S. official said in Washington that a senior U.S official had contacted the Vene-zuelan government on Wednesday to inform it of the arrests and to convey that this was an independent move by U.S. law enforcement rather than a politicized effort to attack Maduro.
Three U.S. officials said the arrests were not an effort to go after Maduro’s government but a case of U.S. law enforcement seeking to prosecute suspected wrongdoing.
The charge against the two men alleged that from October, the pair participated in meetings in Venezuela regarding a shipment of cocaine that was to be sent to the United States via Honduras.
“The controlled substance that (they) conspired to import … was five kilograms and more of mixtures and substances containing a detectable amount of cocaine,” it said.
The accusations are an embarrassment for Maduro, the 52-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, as his ruling party heads towards a tough-looking parliamentary election in December.
Maduro’s Socialist Party faces the possibility of losing the National Assembly for the first time in the “Chavismo” movement’s 16-year rule due to voter anger over the country’s economic crisis. A major oil exporter, Venezuela has been hit hard by falling oil prices.
Maduro and other senior officials have long said accusations of collusion with traffickers by the United States are part of an international campaign to discredit socialism in Venezuela.
Flores, who was in Geneva on Thursday with Maduro as he addressed the United Nations human rights body, declined to speak to reporters seeking comment on her nephews.
