The United States has doubled its reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to US$50 million, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a video statement released 7 August. The bounty, jointly offered by the Justice and State Departments, replaces a previous US$25 million offer made in January and marks the largest reward ever posted by Washington for a single individual. Bondi accused Maduro of working with criminal networks including the Tren de Aragua gang, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles to smuggle drugs into the United States. She said the Drug Enforcement Administration has seized about 30 tonnes of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates and confiscated more than US$700 million in related assets, among them two private jets and nine vehicles. “Maduro is one of the world’s biggest drug traffickers and a threat to our national security,” Bondi declared. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the US$50 million figure “the largest reward in our history, double the amount offered for Osama bin Laden.” The United States first put a price on Maduro’s capture in 2020, when federal prosecutors charged him with narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking conspiracy. The latest increase follows the State Department’s July designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a global terrorist organisation. Caracas dismissed the announcement as “pathetic political propaganda.” Foreign Minister Yván Gil said the reward was a “ridiculous smokescreen,” while Venezuela’s armed forces reiterated their loyalty to Maduro. Despite the intensifying U.S. pressure, Maduro—re-elected in a vote Washington deemed illegitimate—remains firmly in control at home.