New Venezuelan leader on DEA’s radar for years
WASHINGTON—When President Donald Trump announced the audacious capture of Nicolas Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the United States, he portrayed the strongman’s vice president and longtime aide as America’s preferred partner to stabilize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, corruption and economic mayhem.
Left unspoken was the cloud of suspicion that long surrounded Delcy Rodríguez before she became acting president of the beleaguered nation earlier this month.
In fact, Rodríguez has been on the radar of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for years and in 2022 was even labeled a “priority target,” a designation DEA reserves for suspects believed to have a “significant impact” on the drug trade, according to records obtained by The Associated Press (AP) and more than half a dozen current and former US law enforcement officials.
Intelligence file
The DEA has amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, the records show, cataloging her known associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling. One 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. As recently as last year, she was linked to Maduro’s alleged bagman, Alex Saab, whom US authorities arrested in 2020 on money laundering charges.
The US government has never publicly accused Rodríguez of any criminal wrongdoing. Notably for Maduro’s inner circle, she’s not among the more than a dozen current Venezuelan officials charged with drug trafficking alongside the ousted president.
‘Priority target’
Rodríguez’s name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, several of which remain ongoing, involving agents in field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York, the AP learned. The AP could not determine the specific focus of each investigation.
Three current and former DEA agents who reviewed the records at the request of AP said they indicate an intense interest in Rodríguez throughout much of her tenure as vice president, which began in 2018. They were not authorized to discuss DEA investigations and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The records reviewed by AP do not make clear why Rodríguez was elevated to a “priority target.”
