Venezuelan Official Rejects U.S. Claims of Seized Assets
Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, dismissed accusations from the United States regarding the seizure of over $700 million in assets allegedly linked to President Nicolás Maduro, who has been labeled by the Trump administration as the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, a terrorist organization in the U.S., reports 24brussels.
During his weekly program, Cabello sarcastically responded, “They sanction, they’re taking things away, they say they’ve taken away properties, homes, and planes from Nicolás in the United States. They say they blocked my accounts too, which accounts? Maybe accounts I have to pay. Oh, my YouTube account, yes, they blocked my YouTube account, that’s true.”
Additionally, Cabello, who also serves as the first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), referred to U.S. officials as “stupid” in light of these allegations, asserting, “Anyone who knows Nicolás knows he’s the same Nicolás as always. I’ve known him for 27 years, and he’s the same, hasn’t changed, hasn’t betrayed Commander Hugo Chávez, and has endured all the pressure from the gringos.”
The U.S. government claims to have confiscated over $700 million in assets tied to Maduro. In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi emphasized the scale of the confiscations. “This is organized crime, no different from the mafia and the (alleged) crimes related to Maduro. The assets exceed $700 million that we’ve already seized, but his regime of terror continues,” Bondi stated. She also announced an increase in the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest from $25 million to $50 million on August 7.
In a related development, Venezuela’s Executive Vice President, Delcy RodrĂguez, called for Latin American nations to unite against what she described as “direct threats of military intervention” from the U.S., following Trump’s remarks on deploying troops to target drug cartels in the region.
