Maduro and his wife expected to face new U.S. charges over tortured Americans

Nine months after American commandos pulled him out of Caracas, Nicolas Maduro is about to learn that his legal trouble in the United States is only getting started.

Federal prosecutors in New York are expected to bring new criminal charges as soon as Thursday against Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores over the alleged torture of Americans held in Venezuelan custody, CNN first reported Wednesday, citing multiple people familiar with the investigation. The charges relate to what the U.S. government has described as the wrongful detention of more than a dozen U.S. citizens in Venezuelan prisons during Maduro's 13 year rule. Investigators have also discussed charging several additional people for their alleged roles.

The allegations are not abstract. Former U.S. hostage Jorge Toledo, one of the six American oil executives known as the Citgo 6, told CNN in January that he endured "physical and psychological torture" over nearly five years at El Helicoide prison and at the headquarters of Venezuela's military counterintelligence agency. The State Department's 2023 human rights report documented credible reports that Maduro aligned security forces routinely tortured detainees through beatings, asphyxiation, electric shocks, sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation. Washington has long accused Maduro's government of seizing Americans as leverage for sanctions relief, including five oil executives freed in 2022 in exchange for two of Flores's nephews convicted of drug trafficking in the United States.

Maduro and Flores were captured in the January 3 U.S. military raid on the presidential palace in Caracas and flown to New York, where they pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism conspiracy and other charges. They are held without bail and face trial starting June 1, 2027. Flores is due in court Thursday on a bid for house arrest. Maduro's lawyer is challenging the legality of the arrest itself, arguing the former president has immunity for conduct in office, a claim the prosecution notes Venezuela's own government is not supporting.

Since the capture, Venezuela has been led by Maduro's former vice president Delcy Rodriguez, who has increased cooperation with the Trump administration. The new charges, if they land, will test whether the American case against the man who ran Venezuela for 13 years is about drugs, or about something the prosecutors consider worse.