Who is Venezuelan First Lady Celia Flores captured by the United States?

When U.S. forces carried out a nighttime raid on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, they not only dragged President Nicolás Maduro from his residence and put him on a ship bound for New York, they also took away his wife.

Cilia Flores, 69, has long been considered one of Venezuela’s most powerful figures, a political operator in her own right who has shaped the country’s destiny for decades.

After leading Venezuela’s National Assembly for several years, she helped her husband consolidate his grip on power after winning the 2013 presidential election.

As first lady, she was called the “first warrior” by Maduro. But in this role, she publicly took a backseat – projecting a more family-oriented face to what critics said was a brutal regime.

She hosts the TV show “Con Cilia en Familia” and occasionally appears on national television dancing salsa with her husband. But behind the scenes, she is considered one of Maduro’s key advisers and the architect of his political survival.

Flores faces accusations of corruption and nepotism, and in recent years her family has been convicted of cocaine smuggling in U.S. courts.

She will now face drug trafficking and weapons charges along with her husband in a New York court.

Flores met Maduro in the early 1990s when, as a young, budding lawyer, she defended the architects of the failed 1992 coup.

Chief among them was Hugo Chávez, who later became president.

It was during those years that she met Maduro, who was working as a security guard for Chavez.

“I met Celia in my life,” Maduro recalled. “She was a lawyer for several imprisoned patriotic officers. But she was also a lawyer for Commander Chavez, and, being Commander Chavez’s lawyer in prison… was difficult.”

“I met her during those years of struggle and, well, she caught my attention.”

Since then, their fate has been linked to Chávez and his Chavismo political movement.

After Chavez was elected president in 1998, Flores quickly rose in the political arena, joining the National Assembly in 2000 and becoming its leader in 2006.

For six years she has led a nearly one-party parliament, with the main opposition party refusing to participate in elections saying they were not free and fair.

After Chavez’s death in 2013, Flores threw his full support behind Maduro, who narrowly won the subsequent presidential election.

The two married a few months later, formalizing their years-long live-in relationship and raising their children from a previous relationship: her three children and his one.

“She became a key figure in the Maduro regime,” said José Enrique Arrioja, a Venezuelan journalist and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.

“She is not only Maduro’s emotional confidant but also a professional confidant. And she is very powerful.”

Over the course of her career, she faced numerous corruption charges.

In 2012, she was accused by the union of nepotism that affected the employment of as many as 40 people, including numerous members of her family.

“My family is here and I’m very proud that they are my family. I will defend them,” she responded.

In November 2015, she was involved in “Drug Lord’s Nephew” Casewhen her two nephews, Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, were arrested in Haiti during a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation.

They were arrested for trying to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.

Flores accused U.S. authorities of “kidnapping” her nephew, but a judge sentenced the pair to 18 years in prison on drug trafficking charges. They were returned to Venezuela in 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange under the Biden administration.

But last month, when the Trump administration announced new sanctions against the two nephews, as well as a third nephew, Carlos Eric Malpica Flores, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said: “Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are feeding the United States drugs that are poisoning the American people.”

He added: “Treasury is holding the regime, its cronies and companies accountable for their ongoing crimes.”

The newly unsealed indictment against Flores accuses her of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange meetings between “large-scale drug traffickers” and the director of Venezuela’s National Counter-Narcotics Office.

“To her critics, she is seen as part of a deeply corrupt, human rights abuses and brutal government,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow at Chatham House’s Latin America Program.

“She is the power behind the throne,” he added. “But like any powerful force behind the throne, you really don’t see her hands that often, so no one really knows how powerful she is.”

She is expected to appear in court on Monday.

bbc world