US Attorney General Pam Bondi says Venezuelan president one of the world’s ‘largest narco-traffickers’.
The United States has offered a $50m reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, doubling an earlier reward of $25m set by the Trump administration in January.
The US has accused the Venezuelan leader of being one of the world’s leading narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
In a video posted to social media on Thursday announcing the “historic” increase in reward money, US Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Maduro of collaborating with Venezuelan crime syndicates Tren de Aragua, Cartel of the Suns and the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi said.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” she said, before giving the public a hotline phone number where they can report tips.
Bondi also said that the US Department of Justice had so far seized more than $700m in assets linked to Maduro, including two private jets, nine vehicles, and claimed that tonnes of seized cocaine had been traced directly to the president.
Today, @TheJusticeDept and @StateDept are announcing a $50 MILLION REWARD for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. pic.twitter.com/D8LNqjS9yk
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 7, 2025
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil responded on the Telegram platform to Bondi’s announcement, saying it was “the most ridiculous smokescreen ever seen” and designed to distract attention from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy in the US.
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“It does not surprise us, coming from who it comes from. The same one who promised a non-existent ‘secret list’ of Epstein and who wallows in scandals of political favours,” the minister said.
“Her show is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own miseries. The dignity of our homeland is not for sale. We reject this crude political propaganda operation,” he said.
Maduro was indicted in a US federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, along with several close allies, on federal drug charges.
At the time, the US offered a $15m reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25m – the same amount the US offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
In June, a former director of the Venezuelan military intelligence pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the US, a week before his trial was set to begin.
Hugo Carvajal, who served in the government of the late President Hugo Chavez from 2004 to 2011, admitted guilt in four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons charges.
US federal prosecutors had alleged the former major-general, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan government and military officials, led a drug cartel that attempted to “flood” the US with cocaine.
Carvajal had served as a diplomat representing Maduro’s government before breaking with him to support the country’s US-backed political opposition. He was extradited from Spain to the US in July 2023 following more than a decade-long campaign by the Justice Department.
Despite the US rewards, Maduro remains in power after his re-election as president in 2024 in a vote that was condemned as a sham by Washington, the European Union and several Latin American governments.
Last month, the Trump administration struck a deal to secure the release of 10 Americans jailed in Caracas in exchange for Venezuela seeing the return home of dozens of people deported by the US to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s new immigration crackdown.
Shortly after, the White House also reversed course and allowed US oil giant Chevron to resume drilling in Venezuela after it was previously blocked by US sanctions.