Nephews Of Venezuela First Lady Held In Haiti On Drug smuggling Charges

The Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, With First Lady Cilia Flores

Two nephews of Venezuela’s powerful first lady, Cilia Flores, have been arrested in Haiti on charges of conspiring to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the US, two people familiar with the case said on Wednesday.

The incident is likely to heighten tensions between the US and Venezuela and cast a new look at US accusations of drug trafficking at the highest levels of embattled President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist administration.
The two arrested men, identified as Efraín Campos and Francisco Flores, were detained on Tuesday night when they arrived on a private plane in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, said Michael Vigil, the former head of international operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration, who was briefed by US authorities about the lengthy undercover operation that led to their capture.

Vigil said Campos claimed to law enforcement that he is the son of Flores and stepson of Maduro. Both Campos and Flores were traveling on diplomatic passports but do not have diplomatic immunity, Vigil said.
Another person briefed on the incident, who agreed to talk to the guardian about the case only if not quoted by name, said Campos is the son of a deceased sister of Flores and was partly raised by the first lady and Maduro.
That person said the two men had already been extradited from Haiti, whose government is a close ally of Maduro, and would be arraigned on Thursday in US district court in New York.
 
Flores, who Maduro likes to call the “first combatant”, is one of the most powerful members of Venezuela’s revolutionary government and a constant presence alongside her husband whenever he appears in public.
A former president of the national assembly who is now running for congress in elections three weeks away, she became romantically involved with Maduro in the 1990s while serving as lawyer for the then jailed Hugo Chávez. Maduro was one of many leftist activists drawn to the charismatic junior army officer following his arrest for a failed 1992 coup attempt. Maduro and Flores formally wed in 2013 shortly after Maduro was elected president.