U.S. Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a bill on Thursday that seeks to increase the bounty on Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro from $15 million to $100 million.
Maduro, presently leading efforts to illegitimately cling to power following the July 28 sham presidential election, is actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narcoterrorism charges alongside other top brass figures in his authoritarian regime.
Since 2020, the United States has a $15-million bounty active for any information that can lead to the arrest and/or conviction of Nicolás Maduro.
The bill, titled “Securing Timely Opportunities for Payment and Maximizing Awards for Detaining Unlawful Regime Officials (STOP MADURO) Act,” states that the increased reward funding would not come from American taxpayer money but from assets already seized from Maduro, his regime’s officials, and co-conspirators. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida estimates that Washington has seized approximately $450 million in such assets.
“The time has come for Venezuela to be liberated from the illegitimate regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro,” Sen. Scott said.
“For years, I have urged the Biden-Harris administration to put the full weight of the federal government to put an end to the Maduro regime,” he continued, “but it has refused and continued its failed appeasement that has only enriched and emboldened Maduro and his puppet masters in Cuba at the expense of the Venezuelan people.”
Sen. Scott added that former President Donald Trump “did the right thing” by offering the $15 million bounty on Maduro but that it is “time to up the ante,” citing the recent events of the July 28 sham presidential election, which Maduro fraudulently insists he “won”:
Sen. Rubio stated that the United States “must do more” to arrest Maduro. The senator added that he has called for Interpol to issue a red notice for Maduro – a request for member states to arrest him – and pointed out that the bill “builds on that call by increasing the reward for his arrest to $100 million.”
“Maduro is one of the Venezuelan regime’s most corrupt schemers and it’s past time he is held accountable for his crimes,” Sen. Rubio said.
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), responding to the recent violence in Venezuela, said that Maduro and his regime have escalated their brutal repression of dissidents in the two months following the July 28 sham presidential election. Maduro unleashed a brutal repressive campaign following the sham election that has left at least 25 dead, hundreds injured, and resulted in more than 2,400 arbitrary detentions — including nearly 60 children who remain imprisoned at press time, according to recent reports.
“Maduro’s regime is a criminal enterprise that fuels narco-terrorism, suppresses independent media, and violates human rights with impunity. Last year, I warned that the Biden-Harris Administration’s appeasement of this dictatorship would only embolden Maduro,” Rep. Díaz-Balart said. “Lifting sanctions has endangered our national security, aiding a regime closely allied with dangerous adversaries like Russia, Iran, Cuba, and the PRC [China].”
“Instead of easing sanctions, the Biden-Harris Administration should stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people in their fight for freedom by increasing this bounty and strengthening sanctions,” he continued.
U.S. authorities have long accused Maduro of being one of the leading figures of the Cartel of the Suns, an intercontinental cocaine trafficking operation run by high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military and leaders of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The Cartel of the Suns, which operates a diffuse “network of networks” ingrained deep within the Venezuelan Armed Forces, stands accused of plotting to “flood” the United States with cocaine.
The Venezuelan regime-led drug cartel is believed to have forged alliances with international drug trafficking groups such as the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) terrorist organization, the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, and the Shiite jihadist organization Hezbollah.
U.S. prosecutors indicted Maduro and several other leading members of his socialist regime on narcoterrorism, corruption, drug trafficking, and other criminal charges in March 2020. In addition to Maduro’s $15 million bounty, the United States has active $10 million bounties for any information that can lead to the arrest and/or conviction of Diosdado Cabello, a long-suspected drug lord, and Tareck El Aissami, a now-defrocked former Hugo Chávez protegé and liaison between the Venezuelan regime and Hezbollah.
In July, an unsealed indictment from a U.S. federal court in New York claimed that Maduro’s involvement in the Cartel of the Suns was greater than initially thought. The indictment claimed that the previous “prevalent view” was that Maduro had a minor role in the criminal organization, with Cabello and El Aissami assuming its leadership. But the socialist dictator’s influence and leadership of the cartel reportedly grew after he succeeded late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez following his death and as “the interest of the drug trafficking operations began to intertwine with the matters of state.”
The court document further claimed that during his tenure as Chávez’s top diplomat, Maduro coordinated the establishment of an “air bridge” for drugs in the region in the mid-2000s through alleged negotiations with Honduran and other Central American countries for the “uninterrupted passage of drug shipments heading towards the United States.”
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Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.