US offers $15 million for the arrest of Venezuela President
The United States has offered a sum of 15 million USD For information that could lead to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela alongside other senior officials of the country.
The US Attorney General, William Barr, announced this after charging the president, the country’s defense minister, the supreme court’s chief justice and 12 other members of his inner circle with ‘narco-tourism’, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption.
US accused the government officials of flooding the United States with cocaine and using drugs as a weapon to undermine the health of Americans.
Mr Barr at a news conference “Accused Mr Maduro of conspiring with a faction of the Columbian Farc rebel group to flood the United States with cocaine and devastate American communities.”
He added that, “While the Venezuelan people suffer, this cabal…lines their pockets.”
Another US attorney, Geoffrey Berman said, “Maduro very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation.”
He also accused the president and his acquaintances of running a narco-tourism partnership with the Farc for the past 20 years.
“The Venezuelan people deserve a transparent, responsible, representative government that serves the needs of the people – and that does not engage in illicit narcotics trafficking,” US State department said.
“The accused had violated the public trust by facilitating shipments of narcotics from Venezuela including control over planes that leave from a Venezuelan air base,” the department added.
