Nicolas Maduro, 63, has held power in Venezuela for more than a decade.
This came to an abrupt end on Saturday, January 3, when U.S. forces abducted him and his wife, Mrs. Cilia Flores, and deported him from the country.
The two men are ostensibly to stand trial in a U.S. court on drug and weapons charges.
Who is Maduro? How did he end up leading Venezuela? And how did he end up being abducted by the United States? Here’s what we know:
President Maduro’s childhood
Maduro was born on November 23, 1962 in the El Valle neighborhood of Caracas into a working-class family.
His parents are trade union leader Nicolás Maduro García and Teresa de Jesús Moros, who also have three daughters: Maria Teresa, Josefina, and Anita Maduro.
Maduro grew up under the political influence of his father.
Maduro has previously revealed that his grandparents were of Sfaradi Jewish descent and converted to Catholicism after arriving in Venezuela.
Maduro was a fan of Western rock music from an early age, often quoting artists such as John Lennon.
He attended Liceo Jose Abalos, a public high school in El Valle, where he reportedly participated in student politics and served as student body president. However, there are no records indicating that he graduated.
seize power
Mr. Maduro’s political rise began with organized labor.
He is believed to have joined the Venezuelan Socialist Federation, a Marxist-Leninist party, in the early 1980s.
In 1986, at the age of 24, Maduro was sent to Cuba as a representative of the Socialist Alliance, where he received a year of political training. Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella, run by the Young Communist Union (UJC).
Upon his return, he began working as a bus driver in the Caracas city metro system, before founding and leading SITRAMECA (Sindicato de Trabajadores y Trabajaadoras del Metro de Caracas) in 1991.
Maduro became active in transportation unions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, founding one of the company’s first informal unions and gradually moving into power through union politics.
A 2006 cable from the U.S. embassy in Caracas released by WikiLeaks states that Mr. Maduro is a member of the Socialist League’s national committee and “reportedly turned down a baseball contract from a U.S. Major League Baseball scout.”
He was moved by the leadership of Venezuelan Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez, who led the armed Bolivarian movement against Venezuela’s two-party democratic system, the so-called “Punto Fisismo” system, and the incumbent president Carlos Andres Pérez, who was accused of corruption.
In the early 1990s, Mr. Maduro joined the movement’s civilian wing, MBR-200, and subsequently campaigned for the release of Mr. Chávez, who was imprisoned for a 1992 coup attempt.
Maduro met his future wife, Cilia Flores, while leading the defense team that won Chavez’s freedom in 1994.
After Chávez was pardoned and released, Maduro joined the socialist party Movement for the Fifth Republic in 1997 and ran for office in the 1998 elections. Maduro was elected to the Constituent Assembly and Chávez was elected president.
Mr. Maduro approached Mr. Chávez when drafting the new constitution in 1999, and was appointed by Mr. Chávez after six years in office. Minister of Foreign Affairs. In October 2012, Maduro became Venezuela’s vice president as Chávez’s health rapidly deteriorated.
Consolidation of power in Caracas
In December 2012, when the charismatic Chavez fell ill and was flying to Cuba for cancer treatment, he named Maduro, then vice president, as his political successor in a televised speech.
Maduro narrowly won the election after Chávez’s death in April 2013.
He began by calling U.S. diplomats “historic enemies” and accusing them of poisoning Chávez, and calling them out of office. He called domestic opponents “fascists” who are trying to “divide the country.”
The first lady subsequently held several high-level positions, including attorney general and secretary of Congress.
Mr. Maduro inherited tight control over key institutions that Mr. Chávez had already reorganized, including the military leadership, the Supreme Court, and state media.
But the former union leader lacked his mentor’s charisma and has had to deal with a collapsing economy and opposition, including Maria Colina Machado, who later won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and called for protests across the country. President Maduro has cracked down on them, killing at least 43 protesters.
Faced with growing opposition pressure and plummeting popularity, Maduro established a pro-government Constituent Assembly in 2017 to neutralize the parliament, which is currently controlled by the opposition. Another round of protests and further crackdowns followed, with the Venezuelan military killing more than 100 people.
During that time, Venezuela’s approximately 30 million people faced shortages of essential goods, oil production was maxed out, and the economy stagnated.
The next election, in 2018, declared Maduro the unopposed winner, but 45 countries, including the United States, did not recognize him, imprisoning some opposition leaders and forcing others into exile.
Mr. Maduro was once again declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election, but it was widely seen as uncertain because the electoral commission did not provide a tally. Larger protests ensued and were met with severe repression.
Why did President Trump decide it was necessary to remove President Maduro?
When US President Trump returned for a second term in January last year, he upped his ante against the Venezuelan leader.
The Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs on Caracas, doubled bounties for President Maduro and imposed sanctions on his family.
Since September, the U.S. military has been attacking ships off the coast of Venezuela, which the White House claims are involved in “narcoterrorism.”
The turning point came on Saturday when the Maduros were abducted by U.S. special forces and taken to the United States to stand trial on charges brought against them in the United States.
