Who is Nicolas Maduro and why the US targeted him

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro

• US launches military strike on Venezuela, capturing President Nicolas Maduro
• Maduro accused of drug trafficking, corruption, and rigging elections
• This marks the first US military intervention in Latin America since 1989

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The United States launched a military strike on Venezuela and captured its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, US President Donald Trump said, following months of mounting pressure on the Venezuelan leader over allegations of drug trafficking and illegitimacy in office.

Washington has not carried out such a direct military intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, which led to the ouster of military ruler Manuel Noriega on similar charges.

“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Ahead of the overnight operation, the US had accused Maduro of presiding over a “narco-state” and rigging last year’s presidential election, which the opposition claimed it won decisively. Maduro, who took power in 2013 after the death of former president Hugo Chávez, has repeatedly rejected the accusations, saying Washington is targeting him to gain control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves — the largest in the world.

Maduro has been under intense pressure from the Trump administration, which has accused him of leading drug cartels and engaging in widespread corruption, and had been urging him to step down for months.

Nicolas Maduro: A brief profile

Born on November 23, 1962, to a working-class family, Maduro is the son of a trade union leader and worked as a bus driver in his early years. He emerged as a political figure during the period when Hugo Chávez led a failed coup attempt in 1992 and later campaigned for Chávez’s release from prison.

After Chávez’s election victory in 1998, Maduro won a seat in the legislature and steadily rose through the ranks, becoming president of the National Assembly and later foreign minister. In that role, he travelled extensively to build international alliances through oil-backed aid programmes.

Chávez named Maduro his successor, and he narrowly won the presidency in 2013 following Chávez’s death. Maduro’s tenure has since been marked by a severe economic collapse, hyperinflation, chronic shortages of food and medicines, and a mass exodus of millions of Venezuelans.

His rule has also been dogged by allegations of rigged elections and human rights abuses, including harsh crackdowns on protests in 2014 and 2017. The US and other countries imposed sweeping sanctions on his government, and in 2020 Washington indicted him on corruption and drug-related charges, which Maduro denied.

Despite widespread international criticism, Maduro was sworn in for a third term in January 2025 after a 2024 election that international observers and the opposition described as fraudulent. Thousands of protesters were jailed following the declaration of his victory.

Last month, a United Nations fact-finding mission said Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard committed serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity over more than a decade, often acting with impunity. His government’s repression was further highlighted this year when opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.