US Expands Sanctions Targeting Family Network of Venezuela’s Maduro

The United States imposed fresh sanctions on individuals linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Dec. 19 as part of an escalating pressure campaign targeting alleged drug trafficking and corruption by the regime.

“We will not allow Venezuela to continue flooding our nation with deadly drugs,” U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a press release on Dec. 19. “Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability.”

The U.S. Treasury Department announcement builds on sanctions from earlier this month targeting Malpica Flores, a nephew of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, and Panamanian businessman Ramon Carretero. Both were accused of being “responsible for or complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged in, any transaction or series of transactions involving deceptive practices or corruption and the Government of Venezuela or projects or programs administered by the Government of Venezuela.”

Three of Carretero’s immediate family members and five of Flores’s—including Cilia Flores’s sister—were named. It also named Malpica Flores’s father, Carlos Evelio Malpica Torrealba, and his adult daughter, Erica Patricia Malpica Hurtado.

“Malpica Flores, who has been repeatedly linked to corruption at Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), has leveraged his family connections for his transnational financial operations,” the department said.

The Treasury Department stated that “as a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated or blocked persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to [Office of Foreign Assets and Control].”

“In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked,” it added.

The sanctions compound the mounting tensions between Venezuela and the United States, which has been striking purported drug boats in the region. President Donald Trump has been targeting Venezuela since his first term, when he signed an executive order aimed at individuals whom he said were contributing to the deteriorating economic situation in the country.

More recently, Trump has announced a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers off Venezuela’s coast and said war with the country is not off the table. He also accused Maduro’s regime of harming Americans through drug trafficking and gang activity while financing nefarious activities with state-seized oil assets.

“The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Dec. 16. “For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.”

Carretero has been described by the administration as facilitating shipments of petroleum on behalf of the Venezuelan regime. On Dec. 11, it said he “has engaged in lucrative contracts with the Maduro regime and has had various business dealings with the Maduro-Flores family, including partnering in several companies together.”

Trump has also designated fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. That gang was subject to a nationwide crackdown involving multiple indictments, the Justice Department announced on Dec. 18.

Maduro and his government have denied links to the criminal activities and alleged that the United States is seeking to oust him in order to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Reuters contributed to this report.