Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was brought before a New York court on Monday, just two days after he was taken out of Caracas by United States special forces during a military operation.
Photographs circulating online showed an armoured vehicle transporting Maduro as it arrived at the courthouse earlier in the day.
Maduro is facing four criminal charges linked to alleged drug trafficking and weapons-related offences.
Also listed as co-defendants in the case are his wife, Cilia Flores; his son, Ernesto Guerra; the minister of interior, justice and peace, Diosdado Rondón; former interior minister Ramón Chachín; and Héctor Flores, identified as the leader of the Venezuelan transnational criminal gang, Tren de Aragua.
Court documents accuse Maduro of being at the “forefront of corruption,” alleging that he used his unlawfully acquired power, alongside his alleged accomplices, to move “thousands of tons of cocaine” into the United States.
US prosecutors further claimed that Maduro had “tarnished” every public office he occupied and permitted “cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members.”
Following his arrest, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations, said Secretary-General António Guterres was “deeply alarmed” by the latest developments in Venezuela.
The statement warned that the military action could have “worrying implications” for stability across the wider region.
