Why Trump wants ‘Nicolasito’ – the prince of Venezuela

 Two days after the United States captured Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela in a raid on Caracas, the dictator’s son “Nicolasito” appeared defiant in parliament.

“My father, the president, and my second mother, Cilia Flores de Maduro, have been kidnapped,” Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the former president’s son from his first marriage, said.

Addressing Delcy Rodríguez, appointed as Venezuela’s acting leader, he said: “Count on me, and count on my family, to take the right steps.”

The comments are unlikely to endear him to the Americans – or even the new regime, which has promised to cooperate with Donald Trump, the US president.

Indeed, Mr Maduro’s son has long been in the crosshairs of Washington DC. According to the US criminal indictment, unveiled on Sunday by Pam Bondi, the attorney general, Mr Maduro Guerra had also become involved in one of his father’s pursuits – narcotics trafficking.

Along with Mr Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Mr Maduro Guerra was named as a defendant in the case that alleges a narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices that would be used against the US.

The document alleges that Mr Maduro Guerra travelled internationally to secure cocaine and arms-trafficking deals on behalf of his father’s alleged criminal network, the Cartel of the Suns.

He also helped to manage aerial routes and planes belonging to the state oil company that were used for trafficking, it claims.

The indictment says that, on one occasion when Mr Maduro Guerra was preparing to fly to the Venezuelan island of Margarita on a state oil company plane, he first had the aircraft filled with “large packets sealed with tape”.

The indictment claims that Mr Maduro Guerra said, as the plane was being loaded, that it could “go wherever it wanted, including the United States”.

In another incident, Mr Maduro Guerra allegedly riffed with others about the “low-quality” cocaine sent to New York, which would never “be accepted in Miami”, and how containers for scrap metal were used to smuggle the drug into the country.

The 35-year-old has long been known as “Nicolasito” in Venezuela, meaning the little version of his father, because of their resemblance.

Others call him “el principe” or “the prince” in Spanish, in reference to his growing involvement in the government and the state positions that seem to have been created just for him.

Publicly, Mr Maduro Guerra has followed his father’s path in politics. He currently serves as a legislator in the national assembly, and previously served in a pro-government constituent assembly.

Politically, he has represented a faction of the government that’s “more youthful, dynamic, and pragmatic” than its predecessors, according to Pedro Garmendia, a Venezuelan political risk analyst.

Questions remain over how loyal Maduro Jr. is to the new regime in charge.

Shortly after the US launched its operation to capture his father, Mr Maduro Guerra said in an online video that history would determine “who the traitors were”.

But on Sunday, he appeared holding the Bible that Delcy Rodríguez used to swear herself in as Venezuela’s interim president.

Ms Rodríguez has been at the centre of speculation that she was involved in secret negotiations ahead of the US operation.

The Miami Herald reported that she and her brother presented themselves as a “more acceptable” alternative to the Maduro leadership during private meetings in October.

While Mr Maduro Guerra’s initial remarks hinted at interest in knowing who was behind the toppling of his father, his statements to the pro-government legislature on Monday suggested a more immediate priority – securing his father’s return.