Report: US considering charges against Venezuela's first lady

US prosecutors are preparing to charge First Lady Cilia Flores with crimes including drug trafficking and corruption.

Four years ago, a minor player in the Venezuelan leadership was arrested in Colombia and extradited to the United States to face drug charges. He proved to be an important catch.

The man, Yazenky Lamas, worked as a bodyguard for the person widely considered the power behind President Nicolas Maduro's throne: First Lady Cilia Flores.

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Now, with help from Lamas's testimony, the US is preparing to charge Flores in coming months with crimes that could include drug trafficking and corruption, four people familiar with the investigation of the first lady told the Reuters news agency. If Washington goes ahead with an indictment, these people said, the charges are likely to stem, at least in part, from a thwarted cocaine transaction that has already landed two of Flores's nephews in a Florida jail.

Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Justice, declined to comment on any possible charges against Flores. Flores and her office at the National Assembly did not respond to questions for this article. Jorge Rodriguez, Venezuela's information minister, told Reuters in a text message that its questions about the possible US indictment of Flores were "nauseating, slanderous and offensive". He did not elaborate.

In a series of interviews with Reuters, the first Lamas has given since his arrest, the former bodyguard said Flores was aware of the cocaine-trafficking racket for which her two nephews were convicted by a US court. Flores also used her privileged position, he said, to reward family members with prominent and well-paid positions in government, a claim of nepotism backed by others interviewed for this article.

Speaking behind reinforced glass at the prison in Washington, DC, where he is detained, Lamas told Reuters he is speaking out against Flores because he feels abandoned by the Maduro administration, still ensconced in power even though many of its central figures, including the president, have also been accused of crimes. "I feel betrayed by them," he told Reuters.