The Trump administration hit three nephews of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro with new U.S. sanctions Thursday, escalating pressure on the regime just days after American forces seized a Venezuelan oil tanker.
Sanctioned were Franqui Flores, Carlos Flores, and Efrain Campo, along with Panamanian businessman Ramon Carretero, six companies, and six Venezuela-flagged ships accused of transporting Venezuelan oil. The move came one day after President Donald Trump announced the tanker seizure off Venezuela’s coast.
The Treasury Department says Carretero helped move oil for the Maduro government and has done business with the Maduro-Flores family, including partnering in multiple companies. The sanctions were published on Thursday by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The penalties freeze any assets held by individuals or entities in the United States and bar Americans and U.S. companies from doing business with them. Financial institutions that violate the restrictions could face enforcement actions or sanctions themselves.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the regime poses a direct threat to Americans. “Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people,” he said.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury is holding the regime and its circle of cronies and companies accountable for its continued crimes,” Bessent added.
Maduro’s relatives have long been tangled in U.S. sanctions and prosecutions. In October 2022, Venezuela freed seven imprisoned Americans after the United States released Flores and Campo, who had spent years behind bars on narcotics convictions. The pair were arrested in Haiti during a Drug Enforcement Administration sting in 2015 and convicted the following year in New York.
Carlos Flores had previously been sanctioned in 2017 but was removed from Treasury’s blacklist in 2022 under the Biden administration as part of efforts to encourage negotiations over democratic elections in Venezuela.
The latest sanctions follow a series of U.S. strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Those operations have killed at least 87 people since early September.
Trump has defended the actions as necessary to choke off drug trafficking, saying the United States is now engaged in an “armed conflict” with powerful cartel networks pushing narcotics into the country.
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