Nicolás Maduro is now in U.S. federal custody in New York. After being held aboard the USS Iwo Jima, he was flown to Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York state and is being transferred into the U.S. Justice Department system to face federal charges, with multiple outlets reporting that he will be housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
According to U.S. officials cited by major news outlets, the raid to seize Maduro was carried out by the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force (1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta), as part of a larger joint operation that also included other U.S. special operations units and law‑enforcement officers in the extraction team.
The Trump administration has publicly framed the Caracas raid as a U.S. law-enforcement action to arrest an already‑indicted drug‑terrorism suspect, not as a new war. Officials say DoD acted “in support of” the Justice Department, relying on a superseding SDNY narco‑terrorism indictment (originally filed in 2020) and on the prior U.S. designation of Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization. No new congressional authorization or U.N. mandate was obtained; many legal experts and several members of Congress argue the operation violates international law and U.S. war‑powers limits.
There is no evidence so far that any foreign government participated militarily in the raid. Public reporting indicates it was a unilateral U.S. operation, though it used U.S. bases and assets in the Caribbean (including Puerto Rico). Key allies and neighbors such as Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Russia, China and EU states all reacted after the attack, some harshly condemning it, which strongly suggests they were not briefed in advance.
U.S. officials say there were no American fatalities and describe the compound raid itself as having “no loss of life,” but multiple credible reports indicate casualties and damage in Caracas more broadly: Venezuela’s vice president and defense minister say “innocent” civilians were killed in U.S. strikes on several sites, and NBC News reports some U.S. troops were wounded and that Venezuelan facilities, including major military bases and air‑defense units, were hit. Exact numbers of civilian or Venezuelan military dead and injured have not yet been independently verified.
Maduro and his wife have been brought to New York to face a superseding federal indictment in the Southern District of New York on charges including narco‑terrorism conspiracy, cocaine‑importation conspiracy, and weapons offenses related to machine guns and destructive devices. He is expected to be held pre‑trial in federal detention (reported as the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn) and then go through a standard U.S. criminal process in federal court, beginning with an initial appearance and arraignment; no trial date has yet been set.