President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores were captured during a U.S. operation in Venezuela described as a “large-scale strike,” according to the Associated Press timeline of the campaign. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and Flores had been indicted in the Southern District of New York, and that they were being taken to New York to face criminal charges. The indictment accused Maduro and Flores of a role in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, AP reported.
AP said Maduro and Flores were taken from their home on a military base and were aboard a U.S. warship on their way to New York. The timeline also said Venezuela’s government called the operation an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.
The action is the latest step in a U.S. campaign that the White House described in a separate context as an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. AP said Washington framed the military operations as aimed at halting the flow of narcotics into the United States, while U.S. officials alleged that Maduro supported the international drug trade.
The AP timeline traces the lead-up to that escalation. It says President Donald Trump had long threatened military strikes on Venezuelan territory after months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs from Venezuela. AP also reported that Maduro said the U.S. military operations were a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.
Before Saturday’s strike, AP reported that there had been 35 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters since early September that killed at least 115 people, based on announcements from the Republican administration. AP’s timeline also described the early strikes as tied to alleged drug smuggling boats that U.S. officials associated with Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang.
The Associated Press timeline says Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025 that paved the way for criminal organizations and drug cartels to be named “foreign terrorist organizations.” AP said U.S. intelligence agencies disputed Trump’s central claim about an alleged relationship between Maduro’s administration and Tren de Aragua.
AP further described how lawmakers and human rights advocates questioned the legal basis for the boat strikes. Democratic senators wrote to the White House on Sept. 10 that the administration had provided “no legitimate legal justification” for a strike, and Sen. Jack Reed said the U.S. military was not “empowered to hunt down suspected criminals and kill them without trial.”
AP said the U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk called for an investigation into the strikes and said the U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the “extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats.” Separately, AP reported that Sen. Mark Warner said on Oct. 29 that the administration briefed Republicans but not Democrats on the boat strikes.
The timeline also describes political pushback on whether Congress should be consulted for additional strikes. AP said Senate Republicans voted down legislation on Oct. 8 that would have required the president to seek authorization from Congress before further military strikes.
In the days before the capture, AP said Maduro appeared on state television on New Year’s Day and said Venezuela was open to negotiating an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking. AP said he declined to comment on a CIA-led strike and reiterated that the U.S. wanted to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its oil reserves.
The Associated Press timeline also recounts other steps in the broader campaign, including the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela after the ship left with about 2 million barrels of heavy crude. AP said Attorney General Pam Bondi described the seizure as involving “an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” while Venezuela’s government said it was “a blatant theft and an act of international piracy.”