U.S. Indictment Alleges Caribbean Politicians Took Bribes to Facilitate Cocaine Route

A U.S. federal indictment alleges that politicians along the so-called “Caribbean route” were corrupted by cocaine traffickers to allow large drug shipments to move north toward the United States, placing the region within a transnational trafficking network tied to Venezuela’s ruling elite.

The superseding indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses Nicolás Maduro and several current and former Venezuelan officials of participating in a decades-long conspiracy to traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States through the Caribbean and Central America.

According to the court filing, cocaine shipments were dispatched from Venezuela using maritime and air routes, with traffickers relying on transshipment points across the Caribbean basin. The indictment alleges that traffickers paid politicians along the “Caribbean route” for protection from arrest and to permit favored networks to operate with impunity as drugs moved north.

Prosecutors say Venezuela’s geographic access to the Caribbean Sea made the country a strategic hub for narcotics trafficking, with large ports and coastlines used to launch maritime shipments toward regional transshipment points before onward movement to the United States.

The indictment further alleges that corruption linked to cocaine trafficking spread beyond Venezuela, enriching political figures at multiple stages of the supply chain while strengthening violent criminal and narco-terrorist organizations operating across the hemisphere.

U.S. authorities emphasize that the charges are allegations and that the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. Maduro and members of his government have previously rejected similar accusations as politically motivated and without merit.

The case forms part of a broader U.S. effort to target international drug trafficking networks that prosecutors say exploit weak institutions and corruption across key transit regions, including the Caribbean.

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