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NEED TO KNOW
- Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, the son of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, delivered a speech not long after his father was captured and taken to America by U.S. forces
- Maduro Guerra became emotional as he promised his father that the country was “in good hands” despite his removal
- While Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appeared in court in New York City after being captured, Maduro Guerra is also included in a drug trafficking indictment from the Trump administration
Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, the son of ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, delivered public remarks in his home country just days after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured and brought to the U.S.
Maduro Guerra, 35 — whose mother is Maduro’s first wife, Adriana Guerra Angulo — demanded on Monday, Jan. 5, that the U.S. return his father, 63, and Flores to Venezuela after they were taken from their home earlier that day. In a speech delivered from the country’s capital city, Maduro Guerra warned that other nations could be next.
“If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today, it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit,” he said, according to an English translation from CBC. “This is not a regional problem. It is a direct threat to global political stability.”
Maduro Guerra also shared support for Delcy Rodríguez, who is now serving as interim president in Venezuela and has been Maduro’s vice president since 2018.
“My unconditional support for the very hard task you’ve been given,” he said. “Count on me, count on my family, count on our firmness in taking the right steps at the forefront of this responsibility that is now yours.”
He became emotional as he directly addressed his father. Maduro Guerra began, “And to you, dad, I say, you made all of us in the family strong people. Here we are, fulfilling our duties until you return.”
He continued, “The homeland is in good hands, dad, and soon we will embrace each other here in Venezuela,” before adding, “Long live Venezuela, long live the homeland, and here we are, standing firm for whatever we must do for our country.”
Anna Moneymaker/Getty; Donald J. Trump/truthsocial
While both Maduro and Flores were brought to the U.S. and appeared in court on narco-terrorism charges on Monday, Maduro Guerra is also facing drug trafficking charges from the Trump administration, which he denies.
Maduro Guerra — who is known as “Nicolasito,” a.k.a. “The Prince,” according to an indictment — is accused of assisting in drug operations beginning in 2014. The indictment alleges that Maduro Guerra’s plane “would be loaded, sometimes with the assistance of armed sergeants, with large packages wrapped in tape that the captain understood were drugs.”
The filing claims that the plane “could go wherever it wanted, including the United States,” after it was loaded with the packages. Maduro Guerra is also accused of helping ship “hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Miami” in 2017 in the indictment.
Maduro is facing four charges, to all of which he has pleaded not guilty: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy, and possession of and conspiracy to possess machine guns. Flores also pleaded not guilty in the Monday court hearing.
Maduro and Flores were captured on Saturday after President Donald Trump launched military strikes in Venezuela. Trump, 79, confirmed the order of “large-scale strikes” in the region and the capture of Maduro in a statement on Truth Social on Saturday morning.
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In remarks delivered from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., later that day, Trump said the United States would now “run” Venezuela.
“No nation in the world could achieve what America achieved, successfully capturing Maduro in the dead of night,” he said, adding, “We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be…we’re gonna run it properly. We’re gonna make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of.”