The Department of Justice is preparing a criminal indictment against Venezuela's interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, according to a new report.
Reuters detailed that the indictment accuses Rodriguez of corruption and money laundering, and has been backed by President Donald Trump.
"Our report shows that the Trump administration could be using this latest criminal indictment against Rodriguez as leverage to further his agenda in Venezuela," the outlet added.
Rodriguez has been maintaining close ties with the Trump administration since replacing authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.
She has been trying to walk a fine line between demands from the Trump administration, especially regarding the country's energy industry and political prisoners, and those from regime loyalists who are still in their posts.
"Rodríguez's legitimacy lies in the military strength of the U.S. And it will last if Trump wants it to. She cannot stand up to him," Carmen Beatriz Fernández, a Venezuelan political analyst and CEO of DataStrategia, a political consultancy firm, told the BBC in a late-February article
Despite being a Maduro loyalist and a lifelong Chavista, Rodríguez has deviated significantly from some of the regime's previous policies. She passed a law paving the way for U.S. oil companies to begin operating in Venezuela and authorized the release of numerous politicians and human rights activists who had been imprisoned for months or years.
Trump has referred to Rodríguez as "a wonderful person" and "someone we have worked very well with." However, that could change if the interim government doesn't fulfill all ongoing demands.
Beyond balancing her relationship with Trump and managing domestic expectations, Rodríguez has also had to navigate her relationship with Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who wields significant influence within the military, which has remained loyal to Maduro.
In fact, Cabello is is now the highest-priority target on the U.S. reward list following the recent death of Mexican cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho."
Washington is offering $25 million for information leading to Cabello's arrest, placing him among the most wanted figures on U.S. reward lists along with Indian narcoterrorist Dawood Ibrahim, who has been linked to Al Qaeda and is considered the main figure responsible for the 1993 Bombay bombings that left 157 dead.
Cabello was indicted in March 2020 in a federal court in New York on charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons offenses linked to drug trafficking. U.S. investigators allege he "participated in a corrupt and violent narcoterrorism conspiracy" involving Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles and Colombia's FARC.
He is also accused of interfering in narcotics investigations and helping provide military-grade weapons to FARC.
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