The formal accusation presented by the United States Justice against Nicolas Madurorevealed after his capture, resumes charges already formulated in 2020, but introduces a key twist: directly links the Venezuelan leader to the criminal organization Tren de Aragua (Aragua Train), a band born in Venezuelan prisons that in recent years expanded its activity to several countries in the region and the United States.
According to the expanded federal indictment, Maduro would have “collaborated and associated with narco-terrorists”among them members of Tren de Aragua, as part of a broader criminal structure dedicated to international drug trafficking, money laundering and organized violence. The co-defendants include Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Floresidentified as the founder of the band, charged in a separate case two weeks earlier.
The court document does not maintain that Maduro has had direct personal contact with Guerrero Flores, but seeks to establish a framework of political and criminal responsibility by presenting the Venezuelan regime as partner or facilitator of transnational criminal organizations. This construction supports one of the most controversial theses promoted by the president donald trump: that the Venezuelan government would have deliberately promoted the expansion of Tren de Aragua towards the United States as a form of indirect aggression, destined to generate crime and social destabilization.
Trump has made Tren de Aragua a centerpiece of his immigration and security policy since 2024, when members of the gang were accused of taking control of a building in Aurora, Colorado. Although at the time security agencies described the organization as extremely violent but not an international strategic threatthe White House moved in another direction. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order that declared cartels and criminal gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations”explicitly including Tren de Aragua.
That designation allowed the government to try deportations without court hearinginvoking the Alien Enemies Acta more than 200-year-old law created for times of war or invasion. In a subsequent order, Trump claimed that Tren de Aragua was carrying out a “invasion or predatory raid” in US territory, supposedly directed from Venezuela. Under this argument, dozens of alleged members of the gang were sent without judicial control to the Cecot maximum security prison in El Salvador, one of the most questioned measures of its immigration policy. Those deportations ended up being blocked by federal courts.
The problem for the prosecution is that US intelligence reports themselves contradict that narrative. A national intelligence memo dated April concluded that “The Maduro regime probably does not have a coordination policy with Tren de Aragua nor does it direct its operations or movements towards the United States”. Local police investigators and former police officials Drug Enforcement Administration They also pointed out that, although the band is brutal, There is no evidence that he acts under orders from the Venezuelan government..
The new accusation avoids specifying the specific mechanism of this alleged alliance. Instead of describing direct instructions or personal ties, he simply states that Maduro and other officials “They associated with narco-terrorists”a broad formulation that, according to analysts, responds more to a political need than to solid judicial evidence.
For experts like Adam Isacson, from the Washington Office on Latin America, the change is less legal than narrative: the inclusion of Tren de Aragua reinforces the political argument that the Trump administration needed to justify the capture of Maduro and frame it as a national security action, rather than as an intervention against a foreign head of state.
In summary, the United States accuses Nicolás Maduro of leading a criminal regime linked to international drug traffickingof profit from the cocaine trade and of having collaborated—directly or indirectly—with violent organizations such as Tren de Aragua. What remains open to debate is whether these accusations will be supported in court with compelling evidence, or if they are part of a political construction designed to legitimize a geopolitical decision already made.
by RN
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