The U.S. Justice Department is forcefully denying a report claiming that the Trump administration is preparing criminal charges against Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez.
The rebuttal, from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, came after the Reuters news agency reported Tuesday that the Justice Department has been quietly preparing a draft indictment accusing Rodríguez of corruption and money laundering tied to Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, PDVSA.
The report, citing four unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said federal prosecutors in Miami have been assembling potential charges as part of a broader strategy to maintain leverage over Venezuela’s leadership following the dramatic U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in January.
“Completely false, this Reuters story. I’m not sure how something so false ends up being published,” Blanche wrote in a post on X, sharing a screenshot of the report shortly after it circulated online.
Reuters reported that the indictment has not yet been formally filed but that prosecutors have been developing the case for months. According to the sources cited by the news agency, Rodríguez has been told she could face prosecution if she fails to comply with Washington’s demands during Venezuela’s fragile political transition.
In a statement responding to Blanche’s denial, Reuters said it stands by its reporting.
A dispute amid a fragile transition
The dispute has unfolded at a delicate moment in U.S.–Venezuela relations, two months after U.S. special forces captured Maduro in a pre-dawn operation in Caracas on Jan. 3 and transferred him to New York City to face drug trafficking and narcoterrorism charges. Maduro has pleaded not guilty and remains in federal custody awaiting trial.
In the political vacuum that followed the operation, Rodríguez - Maduro’s vice president and longtime fixture of Venezuela’s socialist leadership - assumed power as interim president. Her emergence as the country’s central political authority has turned her into both Washington’s primary link even as she remains, according to critics, a figure deeply embedded in the structures that sustained the former regime.
Publicly, President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Rodríguez for cooperating with the United States during the turbulent transition.
On Tuesday, Trump again highlighted what he described as a productive relationship with the Venezuelan leader.
“We have Delcy who’s been very good. We have the whole chain of command and the relationship’s been great,” he said. “The relationship has been great, it’s been seamless.”
Allegations surrounding PDVSA funds
But the Reuters report suggested a more complicated dynamic unfolding behind the scenes.
According to the sources cited by the news agency, federal prosecutors in Miami have been examining possible corruption and money-laundering charges tied to Rodríguez’s alleged role in laundering funds linked to PDVSA between 2021-25.
The Miami Herald has previously reported that U.S. officials had been investigating Rodríguez for years amid allegations from witnesses testifying in U.S. cases involving the so-called Cartel de los Soles, a criminal organization prosecutors say operated inside the Venezuelan government. Some witnesses have said Rodríguez played a role within the network.
U.S. prosecutors have described the cartel as the drug-trafficking arm of the Caracas regime.
Long before Maduro’s capture, analysts and investigators said the country’s political center of gravity had gradually shifted toward a tight circle of trusted figures surrounding the president - including Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the powerful head of the National Assembly.
Retired Venezuelan Gen. Cliver Alcalá Cordones, who is serving a prison sentence in the United States, has described the Rodríguez siblings as central architects of the system that sustained the socialist government for years.
“That photo clearly shows us who holds the real power in Venezuela,” Alcalá wrote in responses to questions sent by the Herald through his lawyer, referring to the moment Jorge Rodríguez swore in his sister as acting president after Maduro’s capture. “They are the true architects of the Venezuelan dictatorial regime.”
Alcalá’s claims are disputed by Venezuelan officials, but echo long-standing allegations by U.S. authorities that the Venezuelan state became intertwined with illicit financial networks during the years of Maduro’s rule.
For years, U.S. investigations have focused on the Cartel de los Soles, an alleged alliance of senior political and military figures accused of facilitating cocaine shipments through Venezuelan territory.
According to U.S. intelligence assessments and testimony from protected witnesses, the network generated vast revenues from drug trafficking, illegal gold mining and other illicit enterprises that helped the government offset the impact of international sanctions.
Those investigations gained new urgency after Maduro’s arrest in January, which U.S. officials described as the culmination of years of work targeting what prosecutors say was a state-backed trafficking structure.
Filling the vacuum
Rodríguez’s influence expanded dramatically after the sudden fall of Tareck El Aissami, once one of the regime’s most powerful figures.
El Aissami, who had overseen Venezuela’s energy and economic portfolios, disappeared from public view in 2023 after being accused of corruption. The United States had already sanctioned him years earlier under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, accusing him of facilitating narcotics shipments through Venezuela.
His disappearance left a void in the government’s financial and political networks.
According to former officials and investigators, Rodríguez gradually assumed control of many of those responsibilities, including oversight of state-run companies and financial channels used to bypass sanctions.
Publicly, she continued to serve as one of the government’s most visible diplomats, defending Venezuela at international forums and condemning U.S. sanctions as “economic warfare.” Privately, investigators say, she played a central role in maintaining the regime’s financial lifelines.
Protected witnesses interviewed by investigators have described the Rodríguez siblings as key administrators within the system, responsible for managing funds generated by the regime’s various economic activities. According to those accounts, the siblings oversaw networks of companies and intermediaries that handled billions of dollars outside Venezuela.
A fragile political transition
Rodríguez’s new role as interim president has placed her at the center of one of the most volatile political transitions in Venezuela’s modern history.
The January operation that removed Maduro stunned both allies and adversaries, abruptly ending more than a decade of his rule and creating a power vacuum within the socialist movement.
Washington has since sought to stabilize the situation while pressing Venezuelan authorities to cooperate with ongoing criminal investigations and extradition requests.
Trump administration officials have portrayed Rodríguez as a pragmatic partner capable of keeping the country’s institutions functioning while broader political changes unfold.
But critics inside Venezuela and abroad argue that her rise represents continuity rather than reform.
Alcalá, the former general, wrote that Venezuela’s system of power had long functioned less like a conventional government than like a criminal organization:
“It is evident that the Venezuelan dictatorial regime functioned for more than a decade as a true criminal organization with multiple activities.”
