Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was handcuffed and shackled upon arrival at Stewart Airport in Orange County, New York, following a high-profile U.S. military operation ordered by former President Donald Trump.
Maduro, accompanied by his wife Cilia Flores, was flown by helicopter to Manhattan’s West Side, where a crowd of Venezuelan Americans had gathered. The couple was transported under heavy armored escort to be processed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). While no longer in power in Venezuela, Maduro is now a prisoner of the United States.
The operation, carried out early Saturday, was named “Operation Absolute Resolve.” According to reports, U.S. forces conducted a highly coordinated raid in Venezuela, with elite Army Delta Force units capturing Maduro and Flores at their Caracas residence and removing them from the country.
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“The coordination, the stealth, the lethality, the precision, the very long arm of American justice—all on full display,” said U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, praising the mission.
Former President Trump accused Maduro of running a massive criminal enterprise, alleging that he was the head of a network responsible for trafficking enormous quantities of deadly drugs into the United States.
After processing at DEA headquarters, Maduro and Flores were airlifted to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, a high-security federal facility. Heavily armed agents were deployed ahead of their arrival to ensure security.
Outside the facility, Venezuelan Americans celebrated, expressing relief and optimism. “I am confident any government can be better than what we had,” said Rossanna Figuera, a Venezuelan American observer.
Maduro’s arrest follows an escalating U.S. campaign against alleged drug smuggling. The campaign began with strikes on suspected smuggling vessels and has now culminated in Maduro’s extradition to New York, where he has faced narco-terrorism charges since 2020.
