President Donald Trump has announced that U.S forces had captured Nicholas Maduro who ruled Venezuela with a heavy hand for more than 12 years.
His rule abruptly ended on Saturday when U.S. forces captured and flew him out of the country.
Trump, whose government has accused Maduro of running drug cartels and other crimes, had been pressuring Maduro to leave office for months.
The 63-year-old socialist and handpicked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, Maduro was long accused by critics both at home and abroad of being a dictator who jailed or persecuted political opponents and repeatedly staged sham elections.
Maduro, a salsa aficionado with a flair for theatrics, often called opposition politicians fascist demons and took pride in resisting U.S. pressure against him, even having his invocation to Trump of ‘yes peace, not war’ remixed into an electronica song.
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President Nicholas Maduro was sworn in for a third term in January 2025 following a 2024 election that was widely condemned as fraudulent by international observers and the opposition.
Thousands of people who protested against the government’s declaration of victory were jailed.
In August, Washington doubled its reward for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million over allegations of drug trafficking and links to criminal groups.
Trump ratcheted up the pressure in recent months with a huge build-up of U.S. military in the southern Caribbean, more than two dozen strikes on vessels allegedly involved in trafficking drugs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, and a ramping up of sanctions.
Maduro was born into a working-class family on November 23, 1962. Son of a trade union leader, he worked as a bus driver during the time army officer Hugo Chavez led a failed coup attempt in 1992.
REUTERS