Who is Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra? What to know.

It’s not just Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, listed in the Trump Administration’s drug trafficking indictment.

Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro (Jr.) Guerra, 35, is a defendant, too. Maduro Guerra, who is a member of Venezuela's National Assembly, is also known as "Nicolasito" or "The Prince," according to the indictment.

Maduro Guerra, born to his father's first wife, Adriana Guerra Angulo, in 1990, began assisting in drug operations as early as 2014, according to the indictment. A deputy in his father's government, Maduro Guerra was seen by many as a successor of the Chavismo movement, the socialist ideology established by the late former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Maduro Guerra confirmed his father and the first lady were captured by the U.S. as part of a "colonial military aggression" to get Venezuela's oil and mineral resources, according to news aggregation site Noticias Argentinas. He issued a state of emergency and called for "armed struggle" to combat the aggression.

Who is Nicolás Maduro Guerra?

After Nicolás Maduro became president in 2013, Maduro appointed his only son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, as the "Head of the Corps of Special Inspectors of the Presidency," according to the indictment.

Four years later, Maduro Guerra was elected to Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly, and in 2021, he was elected to Venezuela's National Assembly, where he continues to hold office, the filing says.

Before joining the government, Maduro Guerra learned to play the flute in the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela, according to Ecuador's La República. At the National University of the Armed Forces, he studied economics.

Maduro Guerra and his wife, Grisel, have two daughters, according to the Venezuelan news outlet El Estimulo.

What does the Trump administration say Maduro's son did?

Maduro Guerra assisted in a drug operation starting in 2014 in which his plane "would be loaded, sometimes with the assistance of armed sergeants, with large packages wrapped in tape that the captain understood were drugs," according to the indictment. Once loaded, the plane "could go wherever it wanted, including the United States," the filing says. The filing also says that Maduro Guerra helped ship “hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Miami” in 2017.

About 2020, Maduro Guerra met with two representatives of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in Medellin, Colombia, to discuss "arrangements to move large quantities of cocaine and weapons through Colombia and into the United States over the course of the next six years," the filing says.

Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at  mikegsnider  &  @mikegsnider.bsky.social  &  @mikesnider & [email protected].