Following a sting operation by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady have been found guilty of conspiring to import 800kg (1,750lb) of cocaine into the US. Prosecutors said the two men plotted to use a Venezuelan airport’s presidential hangar to send the drugs to Honduras and on to the US.
Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, 31, and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 30, were convicted at a court in Manhattan, New York. Both defendants face up to life in prison when they are sentenced.
The defendants’ lawyers argued that the sting operation was deeply flawed and built around an unreliable informant, Jose Santos-Pena, who was using and dealing cocaine as he helped the DEA build the case. Mr Santos-Pena had signed a co-operation deal to testify against the defendants, but when the defence produced evidence that he had lied, prosecutors took the unusual step of announcing in court that his deal would be torn up.
Defence attorney David Rody said to jurors, “He lied in your face! You saw a rare thing, a government co-operator get ripped up in court.”
Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas are nephews of Cilia Flores, the wife of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. She reportedly raised one of the two defendants after his mother died and has not commented on their arrest and trial.
Assistant US Attorney Brendan Quigley said the men “thought they were above the law. They thought they could easily make tons of money sending drugs out of the country because, as defendant Flores said, the DEA is not here and the Americans don’t come in here. But they were wrong.”
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