\n<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 When President Donald Trump announced the audacious capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., he portrayed the strongman\u2019s vice president and longtime aide as America\u2019s preferred partner to stabilize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, corruption and economic mayhem.<\/p>\n
Left unspoken was the cloud of suspicion that long surrounded Delcy Rodr\u00edguez before she became acting president of the beleaguered nation earlier this month.<\/p>\n
In fact, Rodr\u00edguez has been on the radar of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for years and in 2022 was even labeled a \u201cpriority target,\u201d a designation DEA reserves for suspects believed to have a \u201csignificant impact\u201d on the drug trade, according to records obtained by The Associated Press and more than a half dozen current and former U.S. law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n
The DEA has amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodr\u00edguez 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 Rodr\u00edguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita \u201cas a front to launder money,\u201d the records show. As recently as last year she was linked to Maduro\u2019s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities arrested in 2020 on money laundering charges.<\/p>\n
The U.S. government has never publicly accused Rodr\u00edguez of any criminal wrongdoing. Notably for Maduro\u2019s inner circle, she\u2019s not among the more than a dozen current Venezuelan officials charged with drug trafficking alongside the ousted president.<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Three current and former DEA agents who reviewed the records at the request of AP said they indicate an intense interest in Rodr\u00edguez 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.<\/p>\n
The records reviewed by AP do not make clear why Rodr\u00edguez was elevated to a \u201cpriority target,\u201d a designation that requires extensive documentation to justify additional investigative resources. The agency has hundreds of priority targets at any given moment, and having the label does not necessarily lead to being charged criminally.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was on the rise, so it\u2019s not surprising that she might become a high-priority target with her role,\u201d said Kurt Lunkenheimer, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who has handled multiple cases related to Venezuela. \u201cThe issue is when people talk about you and you become a high-priority target, there\u2019s a difference between that and evidence supporting an indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s Communications Ministry did not respond to emails seeking comment.<\/p>\n
The DEA and U.S. Justice Department also did not respond to requests for comment. Asked whether the president trusts Rodr\u00edguez, the White House referred AP to Trump\u2019s earlier remarks on a \u201cvery good talk\u201d he had with the acting president Wednesday, one day before she met in Caracas with CIA Director John Ratcliffe.<\/p>\n
Almost immediately after Maduro\u2019s capture, Trump started heaping praise on Rodr\u00edguez \u2014 this past week referring to her as a “terrific person \u2014 in close contact with officials in Washington, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n
The DEA\u2019s interest in Rodr\u00edguez comes even as Trump has sought to install her as the steward of American interests to navigate a volatile post-Maduro Venezuela, said Steve Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in the Americas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current Venezuela government is a criminal-hybrid regime. The only way you reach a position of power in the regime is by, at the very least, abetting criminal activities,\u201d said Dudley, who has investigated Venezuela for years. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a bug in the system. This is the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those sentiments were echoed by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who met with Trump at the White House Thursday in a bid to push for more U.S. support for Venezuelan democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe American justice system has sufficient information about her,\u201d said Machado, referring to Rodr\u00edguez. \u201cHer profile is quite clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez, 56, worked her way to the apex of power in Venezuela as a loyal aide to Maduro, with whom she shares a deep-seated leftist bent stemming from her socialist father\u2019s death in police custody when she was only 7 years old. Despite blaming the U.S. for her father\u2019s death, she steadily worked while foreign minister and later vice president to court American investment during the first Trump administration, hiring lobbyists close to Trump and even ordering the state oil company to make a $500,000 donation to his inaugural committee.<\/p>\n
The charm offensive flopped when Trump, urged on by Rubio, pressured Maduro to hold free and fair elections. In September 2018,<\/span>the White House sanctioned Rodr\u00edguez, describing her as key to Maduro\u2019s grip on power and ability to \u201csolidify his authoritarian rule.\u201d She was also sanctioned earlier by the European Union.<\/p>\n But those allegations focused on her threat to Venezuela\u2019s democracy, not any alleged involvement in corruption.<\/p>\n \u201cVenezuela is a failed state that supports terrorism, corruption, human rights abuses and drug trafficking at the highest echelons. There is nothing political about this analysis,\u201d said Rob Zachariasiewicz, a longtime former DEA agent who led investigations into top Venezuelan officials and is now a managing partner at Elicius Intelligence, a specialist investigations firm. \u201cDelcy Rodr\u00edguez has been part of this criminal enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n The DEA records seen by AP provide an unprecedented glimpse into the agency\u2019s interest in Rodr\u00edguez. Much of it was driven by the agency\u2019s elite Special Operations Division, the same Virginia-based unit that worked with prosecutors in Manhattan to indict Maduro.<\/p>\n One of the records cites an unnamed confidential informant linking Rodr\u00edguez to hotels in Margarita Island that are allegedly used as a front to launder money. The AP has been unable to independently confirm the information.<\/p>\n The U.S. has long considered the resort island, northeast of the Venezuelan mainland, a strategic hub for drug trafficking routes to the Caribbean and Europe. Numerous traffickers have been arrested or taken haven there over the years, including representatives of Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman\u2019s Sinaloa cartel.<\/p>\n The records also indicate the feds were looking at Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s involvement in government contracts awarded to Maduro\u2019s ally Saab \u2014 investigations that remain ongoing even after President Joe Biden pardoned him in 2023 as part of a prisoner swap for Americans imprisoned in Venezuela.<\/p>\n The Colombian businessman rose to become one of Venezuela\u2019s top fixers as U.S. sanctions cut off its access to hard currency and Western banks. He was arrested in 2020 on federal charges of money laundering while traveling from Venezuela to Iran to negotiate oil deals helping both countries circumvent sanctions.<\/p>\n The DEA records also indicate agents\u2019 interest in Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s possible involvement in allegedly corrupt deals between the government and Omar Nassif-Sruji, the brother-in-law of her longtime romantic partner, Yussef Nassif. Nassif-Sruji and Nassif did not respond to emails and text messages seeking comment.<\/p>\n Companies registered by the two brothers in Hong Kong received more than $650 million in Venezuelan government contracts between 2017 and 2019 to import food and dialysis medicine, according to copies of the contracts obtained in 2021 by Venezuelan investigative journalism outlet Armando.info.<\/p>\n Taken together, the DEA investigations underscore how power has long been exercised in Venezuela, which is ranked as the world\u2019s third most corrupt country by Transparency International. For Rodr\u00edguez, they also represent something of a razor-sharp sword over her head, breathing life to Trump\u2019s threat soon after Maduro\u2019s ouster that she would \u201cpay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro\u201d if she didn\u2019t fall in line. The president added that he wanted her to provide the U.S. \u201ctotal access\u201d to the country\u2019s vast oil reserves and other natural resources.<\/p>\n \u201cJust being a leader in a highly corrupted regime for over a decade makes it logical that she is a priority target for investigation,\u201d said David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades. \u201cShe surely knows this, and it gives the U.S. government leverage over her. She may fear that if she does not do as the Trump administration demands, she could end up with an indictment like Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014-<\/p>\n Mustian reported from New York.<\/p>\n \u2014-<\/p>\n Contact AP\u2019s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https:\/\/www.ap.org\/tips\/.<\/p>\n \u2014-<\/p>\n This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS) that includes an upcoming documentary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n