At Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s year-end press conference on December 19, 2025, at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Rubio said that when he speaks about Nicolás Maduro’s role in narco-trafficking, it is not a personal claim but a matter established by the courts.
He explained that a grand jury in the Southern District of New York was presented with evidence and returned indictments not only against Maduro but against multiple members of his government for narco-trafficking.
Rubio said that relatives connected to Maduro’s family were indicted and later convicted in the United States on narco-trafficking charges.
Rubio said that prior to President Trump taking action on these narco-trafficking links, Maduro’s cooperation with drug traffickers was not disputed.
He also referenced the regime’s role in unleashing Tren de Aragua and other gangs into the United States and said Venezuela has experienced a mass migration event, with roughly eight million people leaving the country since 2014, affecting countries in the region that have taken in people fleeing the regime.
He explained that the drug links themselves were not contested and said this is what the President has focused on and what he identified as the problem in Venezuela.
Despite objections from the liberal left and the mainstream media, which have attempted to discredit and vilify the Trump administration, Secretary Rubio is correct on all counts.
The claim that the narco-trafficking case against Nicolás Maduro was politically invented is false.
The charges were established through the U.S. judicial system, not by presidential decree.
A grand jury in the Southern District of New York reviewed evidence and returned indictments against Nicolás Maduro and multiple Venezuelan government officials for narco-trafficking.
On March 26, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a four-count superseding indictment charging Maduro and 14 current and former officials with narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and weapons offenses.
The charges included narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment; conspiracy to import cocaine, which carries a 10-year mandatory minimum and a maximum sentence of life; and weapons charges carrying a 30-year mandatory minimum.
According to the indictment, Maduro led the so-called Cartel of the Suns, named for the sun insignias worn by high-ranking Venezuelan military officers.
The U.S. State Department initially offered a $15 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest, which was later increased to $25 million in January 2025.
Maduro’s Nephews Conviction Is Also Verified. Relatives connected to Nicolás Maduro’s family were indicted and convicted in the United States on narco-trafficking charges.
On November 10, 2015, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, the nephews of Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores, were arrested in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration while attempting to transport approximately 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.
On November 18, 2016, both were convicted by a jury in U.S. federal court. On December 14, 2017, each was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison.
Court evidence showed that the nephews worked with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a designated terrorist organization, and intended to use proceeds from the drug trafficking operation to support Cilia Flores’ December 2015 campaign for Venezuela’s National Assembly.
In October 2022, President Joe Biden granted clemency to Maduro’s nephews as part of a prisoner exchange for seven Americans detained in Venezuela, including five Citgo oil executives.
In December 2025, the Trump administration re-sanctioned both men, stating that they “have continued their drug trafficking activities” since returning to Venezuela.
In December 2023, the Biden administration released Alex Saab, who has been described by U.S. prosecutors as a key financial operative and money launderer for Nicolás Maduro, in a separate prisoner swap.
Marco Rubio has said the Biden administration was “snookered” by Maduro’s promise to hold free and fair elections.
Approximately 7.7 to 8 million people have left Venezuela since 2014, making it the largest displacement crisis in Latin American history and the second-largest globally after Syria.
Data published in 2024 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shows about 7.7 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants worldwide, with roughly 6.5 million in Latin America and the Caribbean and Colombia hosting the largest share at about 2.5 million people.
The exodus represents approximately 22.5 percent of Venezuela’s estimated population and accelerated after 2017 and 2018, when the country’s economy contracted by more than 75 percent.
The claim that Tren de Aragua is operating in the United States is verified.
de Aragua is a Venezuelan transnational criminal organization that formed around 2014 inside Tocorón prison in Aragua state, Venezuela.
The gang expanded across Latin America and into the United States alongside Venezuelan migration flows.
In July 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Tren de Aragua as a transnational criminal organization.
In January 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed the group’s presence in the United States, identifying operations in at least 16 states, with activity concentrated in states with large Venezuelan migrant populations, including New York, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and Colorado.
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
There remains debate over whether the group operates under direct Venezuelan government control or functions as an opportunistic criminal organization that exploited regional migration flows.
All of Rubio’s core factual claims are documented and verified by federal court records, U.S. Department of Justice announcements, and international migration data.
The Southern District of New York indictments are matters of public record dating to 2020, the convictions and sentences of Maduro’s nephews are documented federal cases, and the migration statistics are drawn from United Nations agencies and corroborated by multiple governments.
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