Venezuela’s Maduro offers to help Trump hunt down drug gang leaders, but White House rejects overture

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has offered to help Donald Trump’s administration track down leaders of the Tren de Aragua drug cartel after the US military launched anti-narcotics strikes in the Caribbean.

According to people familiar with the matter, Maduro made the offer as part of his push to restart talks with Washington. The US has recently deployed troops and warships near Venezuelan waters and blown up boats carrying suspected criminals.

Maduro told officials he could help locate senior bosses of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that operates across the Americas and has become a target for Trump. He conveyed the proposal to US envoy Ric Grenell earlier this month, along with a letter to Trump calling for direct dialogue to ease tensions. In the letter, Maduro denied Venezuela is a major source of drugs bound for the US.

“I respectfully invite you, President, to promote peace through constructive dialogue and mutual understanding throughout the hemisphere,” Maduro wrote in the letter seen by Bloomberg.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry and Grenell declined to comment, though Grenell told CBS News he is still in contact with Maduro’s team.

The White House dismissed Maduro’s approach, calling him illegitimate. “The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela, it is a narco-terror cartel, and Maduro is not a legitimate president,” a White House official said. “The administration’s policy is ‘maximum pressure’ on the Maduro regime, and no negotiations that could potentially benefit the regime are occurring.”

Tren de Aragua has spread from Venezuela to countries as far as Canada and Chile, engaging in extortion, human trafficking, weapons and drug smuggling, prostitution, illegal mining, robbery, and kidnapping. Some of its top leaders are believed to be outside Venezuela. Caracas, however, cannot extradite its own citizens under the constitution.

Last year, Spanish authorities arrested the brother of Héctor “Niño” Guerrero, the gang’s main leader. Trump has also targeted Venezuelans in the US accused of belonging to the cartel, with hundreds arrested and sent in March to El Salvador.

At least 14 people have died in recent weeks in US strikes on vessels it said were smuggling drugs from Venezuela.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump have both labeled Maduro a cartel boss rather than a head of state, though Washington’s stance on regime change has been mixed.

Despite tensions, Maduro has allowed deportation flights from the US to continue, with over 13,000 Venezuelans sent back since January. US oil major Chevron also still holds a license to operate in the country.