Venezuela's acting president was DEA 'priority target' in 2022

The disclosures create a sharp tension at the center of U.S. policy toward post-Maduro Venezuela: President Donald Trump has praised Rodríguez and positioned her as Washington’s preferred partner to stabilize the country, even as DEA records show the agency has tracked her for years and analysts say her rise through the Venezuelan government was inseparable from its alleged criminal structure.

Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez was labeled a “priority target” by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2022 — a designation the DEA reserves for suspects believed to have a “significant impact” on the drug trade — according to records obtained by The Associated Press and more than a half-dozen current and former U.S. law enforcement officials. The DEA has maintained an intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, cataloging alleged associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling, the records show.

The U.S. government has never publicly accused Rodríguez of criminal wrongdoing. She is not among the more than a dozen Venezuelan officials charged with drug trafficking alongside ousted President Nicolás Maduro. But the records create a stark backdrop to President Donald Trump’s embrace of Rodríguez as Washington’s preferred partner for stabilizing Venezuela in the weeks since Maduro’s capture.

DEA interest spans nearly a dozen investigations

Rodríguez’s name has appeared in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, several of which remain ongoing, involving agents in field offices ranging from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York, the AP reported. Three current and former DEA agents who reviewed the records at the AP’s request said they reflect an intense interest in Rodríguez throughout much of her tenure as vice president, which began in 2018. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss DEA investigations.

The records do not make clear why Rodríguez was elevated to priority-target status, a designation that requires extensive documentation to justify additional investigative resources. The DEA maintains hundreds of such designations at any given time.

“She was on the rise, so it’s not surprising that she might become a high-priority target with her role,” said Kurt Lunkenheimer, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who has handled multiple Venezuela-related cases. “The issue is when people talk about you and you become a high-priority target, there’s a difference between that and evidence supporting an indictment.”

A confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” the records show. The AP said it was unable to independently confirm that information. The U.S. has long considered the island, northeast of the Venezuelan mainland, a hub for drug trafficking routes to the Caribbean and Europe, and numerous traffickers have been arrested there or taken haven there over the years.

DEA records also indicate investigators were examining Rodríguez’s alleged ties to Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman who became one of Venezuela’s top financial intermediaries as U.S. sanctions cut off the country’s access to Western banks. Saab was arrested in 2020 on federal money laundering charges while traveling from Venezuela to Iran; President Joe Biden pardoned him in 2023 as part of a prisoner swap for Americans detained in Venezuela. Investigations into Rodríguez’s alleged connections to Saab-related government contracts remain ongoing, according to the AP.

Trump praises Rodríguez while holding leverage

Almost immediately after Maduro’s capture, Trump began praising Rodríguez, calling her a “terrific person” and saying she was in close contact with U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Caracas to meet with her, the AP reported. The White House, asked by the AP whether Trump trusts Rodríguez, referred reporters to the president’s earlier remarks about having “a very good talk” with her.

At the same time, Trump has made clear the relationship carries conditions. He threatened that Rodríguez would “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she did not cooperate with U.S. demands, and said he wants her to provide “total access” to Venezuela’s oil reserves and other natural resources.

“Just being a leader in a highly corrupted regime for over a decade makes it logical that she is a priority target for investigation,” said David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades. “She surely knows this, and it gives the U.S. government leverage over her. She may fear that if she does not do as the Trump administration demands, she could end up with an indictment like Maduro.”

Analysts describe Venezuela’s power structure

Analysts who have studied Venezuela said the DEA’s interest in Rodríguez reflects how power operates there rather than any exceptional conduct.

“The current Venezuela government is a criminal-hybrid regime. The only way you reach a position of power in the regime is by, at the very least, abetting criminal activities,” said Steve Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in the Americas. “This isn’t a bug in the system. This is the system.”

Rob Zachariasiewicz, a longtime former DEA agent who led investigations into top Venezuelan officials and is now a managing partner at Elicius Intelligence, a specialist investigations firm, said in a statement: “Venezuela is a failed state that supports terrorism, corruption, human rights abuses and drug trafficking at the highest echelons. There is nothing political about this analysis. Delcy Rodríguez has been part of this criminal enterprise.”

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who met with Trump at the White House Thursday to push for U.S. support for Venezuelan democracy, addressed Rodríguez’s record directly. “The American justice system has sufficient information about her,” Machado said. “Her profile is quite clear.”

Sanctions, overtures, and a long political rise

Rodríguez, 56, rose through Venezuela’s government as a loyal aide to Maduro. During Trump’s first term, she worked to court American investment — hiring lobbyists with ties to Trump and ordering the state oil company to make a $500,000 donation to his inaugural committee, according to the AP. That effort collapsed when Trump, urged by Rubio, pressured Maduro to hold free elections.

In September 2018, the White House sanctioned Rodríguez, describing her as key to Maduro’s grip on power and his ability to solidify authoritarian rule. The European Union had previously sanctioned her as well, though both sets of sanctions focused on threats to Venezuelan democracy rather than direct allegations of criminal conduct.

Venezuela’s communications ministry did not respond to the AP’s emails seeking comment. The DEA and U.S. Justice Department also did not respond to requests for comment.