US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused the men of “flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people.”
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published the list of sanctions on Thursday that included three nephews of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
It is the latest move by the US in its escalating conflict with the Venezuelan regime and it comes a day after it seized an oil tanker off the country’s coast.
Who is being targeted by Trump’s anti-Maduro sanctions?
Known in Venezuela as the “narco-nephews” for their involvement in drug trafficking, Franqui Flores, Carlos Flores and Efrain Campo have all been denied access to any property or financial assets held in the US, and US companies and citizens can now be penalized for doing business with them.
The sanctions list also included Panamanian businessman Ramon Carretero, six firms and six Venezuela-flagged ships accused of transporting Venezuelan oil.
The Treasury Department alleged that Carretero has had business dealings with Maduro’s family and has also facilitated oil shipments on behalf of the Venezuelan government.
What the Treasury statement said
“Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury is holding the regime and its circle of cronies and companies accountable for its continued crimes,” he added.
Flores and Campo had been jailed for years in the US on narcotics convictions.
Flores had already been sanctioned in July 2017, but he was removed from Treasury’s list in 2022 during the Biden administration, during an effort to promote negotiations for democratic elections in Venezuela.
US plans more tanker seizures, sources say
Meanwhile, sources familiar with the matter said the US was preparing to seize more oil tankers from Venezuela.
Wednesday’s tanker seizure was the first of its kind of an oil cargo or tanker from Venezuela, and it comes as the Trump administration has led a large military buildup in the Caribbean.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters she was not going to comment on the reports of future actions on oil tankers, but was going to focus instead on the sanctions package.
“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” Leavitt said.
Maduro has said the US seizure of a Venezuelan tanker has “inaugurated a new era, the era of criminal naval piracy in the Caribbean.”
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar
DW News
