U.S. Military Night Raid in Caracas Captures Maduro and Wife; Prosecutors to Add Charges Over Torture of Americans; Sovereign Immunity Dispute Awaits Ruling

On the night of January 3 this year, U.S. forces launched a raid on a compound in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, seizing former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and transferring the two to a federal court in New York. This cross-border apprehension carried out unilaterally by U.S. military power is now facing more complex legal and sovereignty disputes because of the new charges.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), citing its U.S. media partner CBS, federal prosecutors in New York are expected to file additional charges against the Maduro couple, accusing the two of involvement in the torture of detained Americans in Venezuelan prisons. CBS also reported that more people could be indicted over the torture suffered by over a dozen Americans who were wrongfully detained during Maduro's tenure. The BBC has contacted Maduro's lawyer and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan regarding the matter.

The Maduro couple had previously faced weapons and drug-related charges, which both deny. Their trial is scheduled to begin in June 2027; Flores will attend a bail hearing at a federal court in New York this Thursday, and she herself faces drug trafficking and weapons charges.

Maduro's lawyer Barry Pollack told CBS that he has received no notification of any additional charges. The lawyers for the Maduro couple have asked the court to dismiss the charges on the grounds that Maduro, as the leader of a sovereign state, enjoys immunity and that his seizure by force by the U.S. side was unlawful. The motion has not yet been ruled on by a judge.

Maduro and 14 others were first indicted in 2020—during Trump's first term—on charges including the so-called "narco-terrorism" conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession of and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. Prosecutors accused them of "abusing positions of public trust, corrupting once-legitimate institutions, and flooding the United States with tons of cocaine." Maduro himself has previously described such charges as an "imperialist" plot aimed at gaining access to Venezuela's abundant oil reserves.

The Caracas night raid forcibly transferred the Maduro couple from their own country's soil to stand trial in New York, placing Latin American sovereignty principles under the consequences of unilateral military action. The sovereign immunity motion awaits the judge's ruling, and the specific counts in the additional torture indictment remain to be publicly disclosed by prosecutors, but the cross-border apprehension itself—conducted without procedural participation from the Latin American region—has already redrawn the boundaries of extraterritorial law enforcement.