NEW YORK: Mr. Vigil also said Mr. Campos had claimed to law enforcement that he is the son of First Lady Cilia Flores and stepson of Mr. Maduro.
In this courtroom sketch, a US marshall stands guard in the background as defense attorney John Reilly, left, Francisco Flores, center in blue shirt, Efrain Campos, second from right, and defense attorney Rebekah Poston make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, November 12, 2015, in NY. A US magistrate judge ordered them held without bail.
“The Fatherland will continue on its path”, Maduro wrote, “neither attacks nor imperial ambushes, will be a match against the People of the Liberators, we have only one destiny…to win”.
A spokeswoman in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, Fabiola Herrera, said that the government hadn’t issued a reaction to the reports about the president’s nephews.
Relations between the United States and Venezuela have always been fraught. They later brought a kilogram of cocaine to show an informant, in a meeting that was filmed and taped by DEA agents.
To start with woman Cilia Flores, 62, is alluded to by President Maduro as the “First Combatant” and is profoundly compelling in the administration drove by her spouse, reporters say.
Venezuela’s consul in NY, Calixto Ortega, meanwhile, has been in contact with the DEA over the arrests, unnamed sources told The Wall Street Journal.
Several Venezuelan officials, including a former defense minister and head of military intelligence, have been indicted or sanctioned in the United States, and many more are under investigation, but no drug probes had previously touched Mr. Maduro’s inner circle.
A few analysts said that the arrests could play into Mr. Maduro’s hands because he frequently styles himself as defending Venezuela against outside interference.
Maduro’s Socialist Party faces the possibility of losing the National Assembly for the first time in the “Chavismo” movement’s 16-year rule due to voter anger over the country’s economic crisis.
Flores is considered one of the most powerful voices inside Venezuela’s government.
The two new arrests come at a delicate time for the president, who is under intensifying global pressure over crackdowns like the jail term for opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez (especially after the prosecutor, in that case, defected to Miami and testified that the whole case was a political sham.) Just this morning, 157 countries asked Maduro to allow observers in the country for elections scheduled for December 6.
Venezuela is an important transshipment point for cocaine going from Colombia to the United States and Europe.
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