This Thursday, the United States imposed financial sanctions on three nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom they accuse of having links to drug trafficking. The Treasury Department included on the sanctions list Efraín Antonio Campo Flores, Francisco Flores de Freitas and Carlos Erik Malpica Flores, all linked to Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores. The three are part of one battery of sanctions of the Donald Trump administration which also affects the Venezuelan oil sector, including a businessman and six shipping companies, and blocks six ships.
The Treasury Department noted in a statement that Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas, known as the “narco-nephews,” were arrested in Haiti in 2015 on drug trafficking and convicted in the United States in 2016. The previous administration of Joe Biden granted them a pardon in October 2022 as part of an exchange with the government of Nicolas Maduro and they returned to Venezuela, from where, according to Washington, They resumed their drug trafficking activities in 2025.
According to the Treasury, Malpica Flores, the third of the nephews, was vice president of the national oil company PDVSA and was sanctioned in 2017, but in 2022 the Biden administration sanctions have been lifted facilitate an agreement with Maduro for the holding of democratic elections. Others sanctioned also include Ramón Carretero Napolitano, a Panamanian businessman who, according to Washington, “participated in lucrative contracts with the Maduro regime.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that the sanctions serve to undo “the Biden administration’s failed attempt to reach an agreement with Maduro that allowed his dictatorial control“. The State Department emphasized in a statement that those sanctioned support “the corrupt and illegitimate Maduro regime in Venezuela.”
“Thanks to Trump’s leadership, the United States is holding Maduro’s narco-nephews accountable and the Treasury is sanctioning them for their actions. illicit activities which harm Americans and destabilize our entire region,” declared the head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, in a message published on his X account.
These sanctions are a new stage in the pressure strategy of Trump on Maduro, after seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday and destroying numerous ships in the Caribbean that Washington said were part of a drug trafficking operation linked to the Venezuelan government.
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