Federal Prosecutors in Miami Ordered to Open New Criminal Probe Targeting Maduro, Sources Say

Federal prosecutors in Miami have been ordered to open a new criminal investigation targeting detained former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, according to a CBS News report citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. The report, published as U.S. authorities continue to pursue narcotrafficking and firearms charges against Maduro in New York, did not carry a public statement from the Department of Justice confirming the new probe. Reuters and Associated Press reports reviewed alongside the CBS story addressed related financial-crimes prosecutions involving Maduro allies but did not independently confirm the specific new Miami investigation targeting Maduro himself.

The Details

According to the CBS News report, the new Miami probe was formally opened around March and assigned to prosecutor Michael Berger in the Southern District of Florida. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and IRS Criminal Investigation are participating in the investigation, the report said. The reported opening of the Miami probe comes as prosecutors in the same district continue to pursue financial-crime cases against figures in Maduro's inner circle. On Monday, Reuters reported that U.S. prosecutors charged Alex Saab—described in the report as a key Maduro ally—with money laundering tied to the alleged exploitation of Venezuela's CLAP welfare food program. The charges were based on court filings unsealed Monday, according to Reuters. In related coverage, the Associated Press reported in an article published by CBS News on May 16 that federal prosecutors had spent months investigating Saab's alleged role in a bribery conspiracy involving Venezuelan government food-import contracts. That line of inquiry stems from a 2021 Miami case tied to the same CLAP program, the AP report said. Maduro's presence in the United States dates to early January. According to the CBS News report, U.S. forces took Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, into custody on Venezuelan soil and transported them to New York to face narcotrafficking and firearms charges. Both Maduro and Flores have pleaded not guilty, the report said. The CBS report did not say whether the Saab financial cases were being examined as part of the same investigative stream as the reported new Maduro probe.

Context

The reported new Miami investigation marks an expansion of U.S. legal pressure that began during the Trump administration. Maduro was first charged in a 2020 superseding indictment while Bill Barr served as attorney general, according to CBS News. The existing New York indictment against Maduro does not include money-laundering charges, a gap that has drawn private concern from senior officials. According to an unnamed source cited by CBS News, Justice Department and White House officials have privately expressed worry about the pending indictment because of 'the lack of any money-laundering charges.' The source was not identified by name, and CBS News did not attribute the comment to a specific agency or role. Reuters and AP reporting both connect Saab to longstanding U.S. scrutiny over the CLAP food program. Those sources reinforce the financial-crimes angle surrounding Maduro's inner circle, and the unsealed filings and ongoing bribery inquiries indicate prosecutors have been building a record of alleged financial misconduct around the welfare scheme for several years. However, neither Reuters nor AP independently confirmed the specific new Miami investigation targeting Maduro himself, according to the source review.

What's Next

Because the central claim that prosecutors opened a new Maduro probe comes from anonymous sources in the single CBS News report—and because no direct Department of Justice confirmation was available in the reviewed material—the existence and precise scope of the investigation should be treated as sourced reporting rather than an officially confirmed DOJ announcement. Corroborating Reuters and AP reports focused instead on expanding Saab-related financial investigations, confirming the broader financial-crimes backdrop but not the specific new Miami probe targeting Maduro. The Saab prosecutions and the underlying CLAP program investigations remain ongoing. Whether the reported new Miami probe will eventually yield formal charges against Maduro, or whether it will remain part of the broader investigative record around his inner circle, was not addressed in the reviewed source material.