US Sanctions Maduro’s Nephews, Oil Facilitators After Seizure of Venezuelan Tanker

United States Treasury Department on Thursday added three nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, Carlos Ramon Flores, and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores — to its sanctions blacklist, along with Panamanian facilitator Ramon Carretero Napolitano, six shell companies, and six large Venezuela-flagged crude carriers caught illegally exporting oil to Asia and elsewhere.

The designations came less than twenty-four hours after U.S. naval forces dramatically seized a fully laden Venezuelan oil tanker in international waters, an operation President Donald Trump personally highlighted as proof that his administration will no longer tolerate the regime’s continued evasion of American sanctions through ghost ships and complex laundering networks.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a blistering statement declaring that Nicolás Maduro and his criminal inner circle remain directly responsible for flooding American cities with record quantities of fentanyl and cocaine. He vowed that every relative, crony, middleman, and vessel enabling the regime will face systematic financial annihilation until the narco-state apparatus is dismantled.

Also Read: Ligneshkumar Patel Pleads Guilty, Ordered to Pay $2 Million Restitution for Elder Fraud

The inclusion of nephews Carlos Flores and Efrain Campo carries particular political weight. Both men were arrested in a high-profile 2015 DEA sting in Haiti, convicted in Manhattan federal court the following year on charges of conspiring to import 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Their surprise release in October 2022 as part of a Biden-era prisoner swap for seven detained Americans had been heavily criticized by Republicans; Thursday’s move permanently reverses that concession and places them back under the harshest possible restrictions.

Global banks, shipping registries, insurers, and port authorities have been formally warned that any continued business with the newly sanctioned individuals, companies, or vessels will trigger secondary penalties, including loss of access to the U.S. financial system. Intelligence sources indicate several of the targeted tankers are already dark-listing transponders to avoid detection while attempting deliveries to refineries in China and India. The sanctions package coincides with ongoing U.S. military strikes on suspected narco-trafficking boats across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have eliminated at least 87 operatives since early September, operations the White House now openly describes as active armed conflict against transnational cartels.

Also Read: US Lawmakers Call India “Indispensable Partner” in Indo-Pacific, Warn Against Trade Strains