{"id":135,"date":"2026-05-22T09:07:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T09:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=135"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:07:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T09:07:04","slug":"castro-charges-tighten-trumps-noose-on-anti-american-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"Castro charges tighten Trump’s noose on anti-American corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For more than two decades, the socialist regime in Venezuela survived not just on oil and repression, but on a quiet international scaffolding.<\/p>\n

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The structure included foreign politicians who lent Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Ch\u00e1vez legitimacy, foreign businessmen who laundered their money and foreign governments that looked the other way.<\/p>\n

In the past few days, President Donald Trump\u2019s Justice Department dealt a series of blows to that house of cards.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Ra\u00fal Castro, the 94-year-old Cuban tyrant brother of the long-deceased Fidel Castro, on charges tied to the 1996 killing of four men, including three US citizens, over international waters.<\/p>\n

The Castro indictment, like Maduro\u2019s earlier this year, should serve as a warning to Cuba\u2019s leaders: Change your ways peacefully, or it will be done by force.<\/p>\n

Yet Wednesday\u2019s indictment isn\u2019t the main means of uprooting the anti-American socialists\u2019 long-running criminal scheme.<\/p>\n

The tip of the iceberg is actually in Spain.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Spain\u2019s National Court formally charged former Spanish Prime Minister Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero with money laundering, influence peddling, criminal organization and document forgery.<\/p>\n

Investigators allege that Zapatero funneled $62 million worth of pandemic bailouts to a small Venezuelan airline called Plus Ultra \u2014 proceeds that ended up in the hands of Maduro\u2019s cronies, including interim dictator Delcy Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

The Zapatero indictment came just three days after Venezuela\u2019s interim regime extradited Alex Saab, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s longtime financier, back to the United States.<\/p>\n

The federal court in Miami has now charged Saab with conspiracy to launder money through US banks.<\/p>\n

Three indictments on two continents in four days, all aimed at the foreign architecture of two of the hemisphere\u2019s worst regimes, is not a series of coincidences.<\/p>\n

Swiss and French prosecutors are running parallel laundering probes that feed the Spanish file.<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Havana just last week, warning the Castro regime that it \u201ccan no longer be a safe haven for adversaries in the Western Hemisphere,\u201d while a US fuel blockade squeezes Cuba into negotiation.<\/p>\n

And the Justice Department has announced that it collaborated with Spanish police in the Zapatero probe.<\/p>\n

This is a strategy.<\/p>\n

Trump is using justice \u2014 some of it long delayed \u2014 as an instrument of foreign policy to advance freedom and American interests abroad.<\/p>\n

For years, the targets of US sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba have treated those restrictions as mere inconveniences.<\/p>\n

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Bad actors have routed around them through shell companies in Panama, gold flights to Turkey and friendly bankers in Madrid and Geneva.<\/p>\n

Now, the president is sending a message to the world: Obey our sanctions or pay a price.<\/p>\n

These indictments aren\u2019t only just, they\u2019re a US foreign policy game-changer.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re showing those who collaborate with America\u2019s enemies that they will face indictment, extradition and prison if they violate Washington\u2019s sanctions.<\/p>\n

And they bring up an intriguing question: Who in Caracas is cooperating with these judicial moves?<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez, who became Venezuela\u2019s interim dictator after Maduro\u2019s capture, signed off on Saab\u2019s transfer.<\/p>\n

Saab, nominally Venezuelan and a former member of Maduro\u2019s Cabinet, is barred from extradition by Venezuela\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n

That makes Rodriguez\u2019s move extraordinary, and shows that everyone and everything is on the table.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Rodriguez is genuinely cooperating with US prosecutors\u2019 efforts to dismantle the broader Venezuelan money-laundering architecture, or merely sacrificing yesterday\u2019s allies to save herself.<\/p>\n

But as the Justice Department continues to unwind Venezuela\u2019s network of sanctions-dodging conspirators, the information they provide will give Trump ever-increasing leverage \u2014 and perhaps will convince Rodriguez to accept a transition to democracy, in exchange for a comfortable retirement in the Middle East rather than a cold Brooklyn jail cell.<\/p>\n

The United States now has an opportunity to recover\u00a0Maduro\u2019s ill-gotten riches.<\/p>\n

The Treasury Department estimates the chavista<\/em> network looted tens of billions of dollars, much of it sitting in real estate, securities and shell companies in Miami, Madrid, Geneva, Istanbul and Doha.<\/p>\n

Recovering even a fraction would fund Venezuelan reconstruction and compensate the regime\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n

And prosecuting the foreign professionals who made the looting possible \u2014 bankers, lawyers, lobbyists and yes, former prime ministers \u2014 would set a precedent that outlasts any single administration.<\/p>\n

It would establish that helping a dictator hide his money is in fact a crime, and that the statute of limitations is longer than a political career.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Zapatero\u2019s indictment will not be the last, nor should it be.<\/p>\n

The cronies are beginning to fall, and a great many of them are still standing.<\/p>\n

Trump is showing that no criminal, no matter how old, how rich or how powerful, is beyond America\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n

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Justice is coming \u2014 and with it, freedom, too.<\/p>\n

Daniel Di Martino is a Manhattan Institute fellow.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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