US turns up heat on Venezuela with threat to indict new leader Delcy Rodriguez
Source: USA Today
March 3, 2026, 5:17 p.m. ET
The Trump administration is quietly building a legal case against Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez including readying a draft criminal indictment, one of several tools it is using to strengthen its leverage with Caracas, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Federal prosecutors have put together possible corruption and money laundering charges, and have communicated to Rodriguez that she is at risk of prosecution unless she continues to comply with Trump’s demands following the U.S. ouster of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January, the sources said.
Reuters has not seen the charges in written form being prepared against Rodriguez but spoke with four people briefed on the matter. The news agency is the first to report the effort to craft the draft indictment of Rodriguez for alleged money laundering and corruption, which the sources said Rodriguez had been made aware of verbally.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami is preparing the draft charges, the people said, adding that the document has been evolving over the past two months. The probe focuses on Rodriguez’s alleged involvement in laundering of funds from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, three of the sources said, and covers activities between 2021 and 2025, two of the sources said.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/03/03/venezuela-us-indict-delcy-rodriguez/88968421007/
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