DEA labeled Venezuela's acting president a priority drug target in 2022, AP documents show

The DEA records reveal a significant tension at the center of U.S. policy in post-Maduro Venezuela: Trump has praised and embraced Rodríguez even as the agency responsible for investigating drug trafficking had flagged her for years as a subject of active, high-priority law enforcement interest. The U.S. government has never publicly charged Rodríguez with any crime.

The Drug Enforcement Administration labeled Delcy Rodríguez, now Venezuela’s acting president, a “priority target” in 2022 — a designation the agency reserves for suspects believed to have significant impact on drug trafficking — according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and statements from more than half a dozen current and former U.S. law enforcement officials. The disclosure comes as President Donald Trump has positioned Rodríguez as Washington’s preferred partner for stabilizing Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

The DEA compiled a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, cataloging alleged associates and accusations spanning drug trafficking, gold smuggling and money laundering. Her name has surfaced in nearly a dozen agency investigations, several of them ongoing, with agents working from field offices in Paraguay, Ecuador, Phoenix and New York, according to the AP.

The records reveal a significant tension at the center of U.S. policy in post-Maduro Venezuela: Trump has praised and publicly embraced Rodríguez even as the agency responsible for investigating drug trafficking had flagged her for years as a subject of high-priority law enforcement interest. The U.S. government has never publicly charged Rodríguez with any crime. She does not appear among the more than a dozen current Venezuelan officials indicted alongside Maduro on drug trafficking charges.

The DEA File

Three current and former DEA officials reviewed the records at the AP’s request and said they indicate intense interest in Rodríguez throughout much of her tenure as vice president, a role she held beginning in 2018. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing investigations.

According to the documents, a confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in Isla Margarita — a Caribbean resort island in northeastern Venezuela — as a front for laundering money. The AP said it could not independently confirm the informant’s account. U.S. authorities have long identified Isla Margarita as a transit point for drug routes to the Caribbean and Europe, and numerous traffickers have been arrested there or sought refuge on the island over the years.

The records also show investigators were examining Rodríguez’s alleged involvement in government contracts awarded to Alex Saab, identified in U.S. court documents as Maduro’s principal financial intermediary. Saab was arrested in 2020 on federal money laundering charges while traveling from Venezuela to Iran to negotiate oil deals that allegedly helped both countries evade U.S. sanctions. Former President Joe Biden pardoned him in 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange for Americans held in Venezuela. Investigations into Rodríguez’s alleged connections to Saab’s dealings remain ongoing, according to the documents.

The records do not specify what triggered the 2022 “priority target” designation. The DEA requires extensive documentation to justify such designations because they allocate additional investigative resources. The agency maintains hundreds of priority targets at any given time, and the designation does not necessarily lead to criminal charges, according to officials and former prosecutors familiar with the process.

Trump’s Embrace

When Trump announced Maduro’s capture and transfer to face drug trafficking charges in the United States, he presented Rodríguez as his government’s partner of choice for navigating post-Maduro Venezuela. Trump told reporters he had a very good conversation with Rodríguez the day before she met with CIA Director John Ratcliffe in Caracas. She has since remained in close contact with senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump also warned, shortly after Maduro’s removal, that Rodríguez would pay a very high price — probably greater than Maduro — if she did not align with U.S. demands, including providing what he described as full access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and other natural resources.

Kurt Lunkenheimer, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who has handled multiple Venezuela-related cases, told the AP that Rodríguez’s rise within the Venezuelan government made her a logical subject of elevated investigative attention. He noted, however, that holding a “priority target” designation reflects investigative interest rather than proof sufficient for an indictment — a meaningful distinction in any criminal proceeding.

Expert Assessment

Steve Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime, a research organization focused on organized crime in Latin America, told the AP that the situation reflects how power has long functioned in Venezuela. Reaching a senior position in the government requires at minimum facilitating criminal activity, he said — a feature of the system rather than a flaw in it.

Rob Zachariasiewicz, a former DEA agent who led investigations into senior Venezuelan officials and now works for a private investigations firm, told the AP that Venezuela functions as a state in which drug trafficking, corruption and human rights abuses operate at the highest levels. He said Rodríguez has been part of that enterprise.

David Smilde, a professor at Tulane University who has studied Venezuela for three decades, told the AP that leading a government ranked the third most corrupt in the world — according to Transparency International — for more than a decade makes it logical that Rodríguez would attract priority-level investigative scrutiny. Smilde said she likely understands this, giving the Trump administration leverage: she may calculate that failing to meet U.S. demands could result in charges similar to those brought against Maduro.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who met with Trump at the White House on Thursday, told the AP that the U.S. justice system has sufficient information about Rodríguez and that her profile is well understood.

Rodríguez’s Background

Rodríguez, 56, ascended through Venezuelan politics as one of Maduro’s most loyal allies. She has cited the death of her socialist father under police custody — when she was 7 years old — as formative to her political outlook, and has at times blamed the United States for his death.

Despite that, Rodríguez worked during Trump’s first administration to attract U.S. investment to Venezuela, hiring lobbyists with ties to Trump and directing the Venezuelan state oil company to donate $500,000 to his first inaugural committee.

That approach collapsed when Trump, acting on Rubio’s counsel, pressed Maduro to hold free and fair elections. In September 2018, the Trump White House sanctioned Rodríguez, citing her role in Maduro’s consolidation of power. The European Union had previously imposed its own sanctions. Both sets of measures targeted her role in undermining Venezuelan democracy, not her alleged connections to drug trafficking.

Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications did not respond to requests for comment from the AP. The DEA and the Justice Department also declined to comment. The White House referred the AP to Trump’s earlier public statements about his conversation with Rodríguez.

The AP’s reporting is part of an ongoing collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS), which is developing a forthcoming documentary.