DEA has opened nearly a dozen investigations into Trumps pic for Venezuelan president

President Donald Trump met with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado this week, who election monitors said was the rightfully elected president in the 2024 election. But after arresting Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, Trump allowed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez take over. The Associated Press revealed that she has a history of investigations with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), topping nearly a dozen. Documents obtained show that in 2022, Rodríguez was rated a “priority target,” a level that is typically reserved for suspects the DEA believes have a “significant impact” on the drug trade. Three current and former DEA agents spoke to the AP about the documents. There is a considerable intelligence file on Rodríguez with details dating back to at least 2018 under Trump’s first administration. It lists her “known associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling.”A confidential informant told the DEA in 2021 that the now-acting president was using “Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita ‘as a front to launder money.'” The records also show that as recently as 2024, she was working with Maduro’s accused “bag man” Alex Saab, who was arrested by the U.S. in 2020, also under the Trump administration. Investigations into Rodríguez have popped up in field offices like Paraguay, Ecuador, Phoenix and New York, the AP reported. However, the documents did not deal the specifics or reasoning behind the probes. “She was on the rise, so it’s not surprising that she might become a high-priority target with her role,” former federal prosecutor Kurt Lunkenheimer, out of Miami, told the AP. He’s handled many cases involving Venezuela. “The issue is when people talk about you and you become a high-priority target, there’s a difference between that and evidence supporting an indictment.”Trump has referred to Rodríguez as a “terrific person,” and said that she’s in “close contact” with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials. Read the full report here.

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