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