U.S. arrests Venezuelan president's nephews on cocaine-smuggling charges

On Tuesday, police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, arrested two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, immediately turning the two men over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to face charges of attempting to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S., law enforcement officials tell The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations. The DEA flew Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas to New York, where they are expected to be arraigned Thursday.

Campos, 29, told the DEA that he is the son of Venezuela's first lady — or "First Combatant," as Maduro calls Flores — and a stepson of the president. Sources tell The Associated Press that Campos is the son of Flores' late sister, and was partly raised by Maduro and Flores, who have been a couple since the 1990s and married since 2013, right after Maduro was elected president. Flores, 62, is one of the most powerful women in Venezuela's government, a former president of the National Assembly and candidate for congress in upcoming elections.

The U.S. government says that about a third of Colombia's cocaine, or 200 tons a year, travels abroad through Venezuela, and U.S. officials believe that some of the most powerful people in Venezuela's government — including current National Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello — are involved in the drug trade. Campos and Flores de Freitas reportedly approached a DEA informant in Honduras about moving the 800 kilos of cocaine to New York, then showed them a sample of the drugs in a covertly videotaped encounter in Venezuela. "It looked like amateur stuff," one source told The Wall Street Journal.

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It's not clear if the arrests will harm or help Maduro and his party in the upcoming elections. Venezuelans are fed up with the terrible economy and corruption, but "the timing is hardly ideal," says Michael Shifter at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "The arrests could give Maduro the excuse he was hoping for to declare a state of emergency and postpone the elections. He will blame the arrests on U.S. imperialism and see them as an attempt to undermine his government."