Nicolás Maduro pleads not guilty in New York federal court

The former leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, appeared in a New York City federal courtroom on Monday and pleaded not guilty to four charges related to drug trafficking and weapons possession. The arraignment came after a whirlwind weekend in which United States military personnel, under order of President Donald Trump, infiltrated Venezuela and arrested Maduro in a nighttime raid early on Saturday. In the courtroom on Monday, Maduro, who appeared along with his co-defendant wife, Cilia Flores, called himself a decent man and the president of his country.

Trump on Saturday said that with Maduro in custody, the U.S. government would run Venezuela at least temporarily. But on Sunday Secretary of State Marco Rubio tempered those comments, saying the United States would exert control of Venezuela through a continued quarantine and sanctions of Venezuelan oil shipments.

An updated federal indictment against Maduro, unsealed over the weekend, alleged that he and several co-conspirators, including his wife and son, engaged in a decades-long enterprise that trafficked thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States.

What are the charges Maduro faces?

• Possession of machine guns and destructive devices

• Conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices

• Narco-terrorism conspiracy

• Cocaine importation conspiracy

Has the United States accused Maduro of drug trafficking before?  The U.S. Department of Justice previously indicted him on the same charges back in 2020. Maduro also denied all wrongdoing following that indictment.

Dig deeper: Read our report in The Sift about the Saturday military operation and Trump’s claims that the United States will run Venezuela.

—This report has been updated to reflect Maduro’s pleading on Monday