Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, touched down in New York City Saturday night after being captured by US forces — and were greeted by jeers of “Down with the dictator.”
The pair — who landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Upstate Newburgh around 5 p.m. — arrived via helicopter at a Manhattan heliport just before 7 p.m. and were hauled away in a heavily armed tactical vehicle called a “Bearcat” surrounded by a small motorcade.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, will first be transported to the Drug Enforcement Administration Headquarters in Chelsea, where he was processed before returning to the West 30th Street Heliport and choppered to Brooklyn, sources told The Post.
He took off after 8 p.m., and was seen on video being flown down the West Side of Manhattan and past the Statue of Liberty before heading to Brooklyn.
In Brooklyn, a motorcade was set to take the couple to the Metropolitan Detention Center, as they are set to face narco-terrorism charges in the Southern District of New York, sources said.
Outside a large crowd of opponents of his regime gathered to give him a Bronx cheer in Brooklyn, yelling things like “Shame on you” and “Dirty Scumbag!”
The tyrant is expected in the federal court as early as Monday.
The Venezuelan leader and his wife were captured by US forces during a high-stakes military operation Saturday morning in Caracas, leaving the South American country in a constitutional crisis.
Maduro and Flores were charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and weapons offenses.
Here’s the latest on Nicolás Maduro’s capture:
- Ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro arrives in NYC by helicopter hours after capture by US
- Venezuelan VP appears to defy Trump, calls Maduro ‘only president’ in fiery speech
- Nicolás Maduro, Cilia Flores land in New York to face trial after capture in Venezuela
- Trump issues thinly veiled warning to Mexico, slams Cuba, Colombia after US strikes Venezuela, arrests Maduro
- Maduro, his family, cronies hit with narco-terrorism, weapons charges: SDNY indictment
Maduro’s son, Nicholas Ernesto Maduro Guerra, who’s known as “The Prince,” was also charged alongside his parents for the illegal trafficking of thousands of tons of cocaine.
Trump said the couple will face the “full wrath of American justice.”
Info: https://nypost.com/