Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were charged in New York on October 8 with conspiring to torture political opponents and other detainees, three of them US citizens. The new charges widen prosecutors' case against the couple, who have been held since their capture in January.

Court papers show Flores now also faces a narco-terrorism conspiracy count, a charge prosecutors had originally brought against her husband alone. Both were already accused of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and of weapons offences.

"This is the epitome of corruption," Jamie McDonald, the US Attorney in New York, said outside the Manhattan courthouse, according to AP. He said the revised indictment "alleges conduct that is truly unthinkable." He described the abuse as a way of keeping the couple in office, and said it was inflicted on thousands of Venezuelans and a number of Americans.

According to the filing, the couple "inflicted severe physical and mental pain and suffering" to punish opponents and stifle criticism of the government. In its most personal allegation, the indictment says the authoritarian leader threatened to have a prisoner's child killed "as a form of psychological torture". Prosecutors also accuse him of authorising the methods used, monitoring how individual detainees were treated and watching footage of a confession extracted under duress.

Prosecutors portray Flores, who previously served as a legislator and as Venezuela's attorney general, as one of the system's designers. They allege she personally ordered the torture of certain individuals.

The filing does not name any of the three Americans. According to prosecutors, one was left with lasting eye damage after being hooded, handcuffed and beaten every 30 minutes over two days. Another needed an extended spell in hospital after a beating, and had a gun pushed into his mouth. The third was punched, electrocuted and made to eat his own vomit over eight months in detention.

Prosecutors say one of the men was detained in 2022 on what they call false accusations of plotting against Maduro's life. He was subjected to electric shocks to his genitals and limbs, partial suffocation, deprivation of food and water and injections that induced seizures, they say. El Nacional reported that the cases run from 2022 to January 2026, and that prosecutors say the mistreatment of Americans intensified as US criticism of Caracas mounted. AFP, citing the filing, reported that some detainees were also waterboarded and raped.

The DGCIM military counterintelligence service appears repeatedly in the indictment. Its long-time head, General Hugo Carvajal, is charged in the same case but has offered to give evidence for the prosecution, according to AP. Carvajal broke with Maduro years ago and pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in New York last year.

The couple have pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and are due to stand trial in June next year. Their lawyers want the case thrown out, arguing that Venezuela's then head of state and his spouse are protected by immunity. Maduro, who has consistently denied wrongdoing, says US forces abducted him and calls himself a prisoner of war.

Both have been in custody at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since a US military operation in Caracas on January 3.

At a separate hearing on October 8, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected a request by Flores’s lawyers to release her to house arrest on health grounds. Prosecutors had opposed the request, describing her as an “extreme” flight risk and saying she had received hospital care whenever necessary.

More than a dozen supporters of Flores rallied outside the court during the hearing.

Maduro was president from 2013, and the International Criminal Court has for years examined whether his persecution of opponents amounted to crimes against humanity. Rights groups reported a surge in political arrests after the disputed July 2024 presidential election, with the NGO Foro Penal counting 1,697 political prisoners in early 2025. Last month, a UN-mandated fact-finding mission said the country's repressive apparatus remained largely intact. It said interim President Delcy Rodriguez's government had nonetheless released some detainees, approved a sweeping amnesty law and closed El Helicoide, a Caracas facility rights groups have associated with torture.

Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president, took over as interim leader after his ouster and has since moved closer to the Trump administration, which has kept her government under sustained pressure. She demanded her former boss' immediate release in the hours after his capture, but official campaigns calling for his return have since largely faded. Washington has also taken charge of Venezuela’s oil sales, holding the proceeds in a US-administered fund as custodian on Caracas’s behalf. Under an agreement announced on August 28, Venezuela granted a US-backed operator rights to 17 oilfields holding an estimated 65bn barrels of crude, about a fifth of its proven reserves. The deal promises more than $100bn in investment, according to US figures.

President Donald Trump met Rodriguez in New York on September 22 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, a few blocks away from the prison where Maduro is being held and days after Washington removed Venezuela from its list of countries failing to combat drug trafficking.