Overview
- Flores was detained in a reported U.S. operation in Caracas alongside President Nicolás Maduro and transferred to New York custody.
- She now faces U.S. charges that include drug trafficking, terrorism financing and illegal weapons possession.
- A longtime power broker in Chavista politics, she has been described as a principal strategist behind Maduro and has appeared on Western sanctions lists for years.
- Her family’s narcotics ties reemerged in focus after two nephews were arrested by the DEA in 2015 over a plan to ship roughly 800 kilograms of cocaine to the United States, later receiving 18‑year sentences before a 2022 prisoner exchange returned them to Venezuela.
- Human-rights groups and U.N. investigators attribute extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions and political persecution to the Maduro government, placing Flores within that system.