Venezuelan first lady's nephews face U.S. drug trial

[November 02, 2016]  By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two nephews of Venezuela's first lady are set to go on trial on U.S. charges that they tried to carry out a multimillion-dollar drug deal to obtain a large amount of cash to help their family stay in power.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court in the case of Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores.

Prosecutors accuse the nephews of trying to monetize their political connections to use one of Venezuela's airports to send hundreds of kilograms of cocaine to Honduras for transshipment to the United States.

Prosecutors say their goal in part was to obtain cash to counteract money they believed the United States was supplying to the opposition before Venezuela's December 2015 National Assembly elections.

Maduro's Socialist Party lost its parliamentary majority after the vote.

Both nephews have pleaded not guilty.

The case has been an embarrassment for Maduro during a political and economic crisis in Venezuela. It is one of several U.S. investigations that have linked individuals connected to the Venezuelan government to drug trafficking.

Prosecutors said in 2015, a Honduran drug trafficker told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that a Venezuelan official related to Cilia Flores planned to send his nephew to meet with him about bringing drug-laden planes into Honduras.

Working with the DEA, the trafficker met with Flores de Freitas, 31, and Campo Flores, 30, who then asked the trafficker to send a representative to Venezuela to meet with them, the prosecutors said.

Two DEA informants posing as Mexican drug cartel members met in Caracas with Flores de Freitas and Campo Flores, recording their meetings and observing cocaine, prosecutors said.

The two men were arrested in Haiti in November 2015. On a flight to New York, both men confessed, prosecutors said.

At trial, the nephews are expected to call into question the DEA informants' credibility. Both informants have admitted to lying to the DEA to secretly traffic drugs themselves.

If convicted, the nephews face a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life.

A Honduran man named Roberto de Jesus Soto Garcia has also been charged in connection with the nephews' case. He was arrested on Friday by Honduran police.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Tom Brown)

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