OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:20 PM – Sunday, January 4, 2026
Captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is set to appear in federal court in New York on Monday to face U.S. drug charges.
After being captured by U.S. special forces on Saturday, Maduro is reportedly being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center, the notorious Brooklyn jail that housed Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell, and many other high-profile defendants.
Notably, Maduro is housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center at the same time as Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“I would expect [Maduro] would be held in [a special housing unit] at the outset and then moved into one of the ‘special’ units where other high-profile individuals have been held,” former assistant director at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Judi Garrett told Fox News.
Maduro has since been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi stated that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
“I would like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People, and a huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers,” Bondi added in a Saturday X post.
Maduro’s lawyers are expected to argue that his arrest was illegally conducted as he is the head of a foreign sovereign state, prohibiting the unilateral action under international law.
Although Maduro’s legal team is expected to challenge the legality of his arrest, the argument is likely to fail because the United States does not recognize him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, citing the widely recognized fraudulent 2024 election in which the opposition won by a large margin.
“There’s no claim to sovereign immunity if we don’t recognize him as head of state,” retired federal prosecutor Dick Gregorie told Newsmax. “Several U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have called his election fraudulent and withheld U.S. recognition. Sadly, for Maduro, it means he’s stuck with it.”
Maduro is now set to appear before U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein at noon in federal court in lower Manhattan, according to the Southern District of New York.
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