The Department of Justice activates a new criminal case against Maduro to prevent him from being released from prison

The U.S. judicial apparatus has launched a last-minute strategic move to ensure the prosecution of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. High-ranking Department of Justice leaders internally ordered the opening of a new criminal investigation in the Southern District of Florida.

The decision comes in response to growing concern among federal and White House officials that the current indictment in New York may not be strong enough to secure a conviction.

As revealed by a CBS News exclusive, citing multiple sources familiar with the case, this new formal line of investigation was opened around March, with Maduro already in custody on U.S. soil.

The case was under the direction of Michael Berger, an experienced Miami prosecutor specializing in international criminal litigation, who works in coordination with agents from the FBI, the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The Alex Saab Factor

The new legal deployment coincides with the recent deportation and indictment of Alex Saab, a close economic collaborator of Maduro. U.S. authorities have maintained for years a priority interest in Saab's financial operations, due to the strong suspicion that he manages and hides a substantial part of the personal economic resources of the former Venezuelan dictator.

Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores' judicial file that prompted their initial arrest dates back to 2020, during Attorney General Bill Barr's tenure, and focuses exclusively on narcoterrorism offenses, cocaine importation, and possession of heavy-caliber firearms. Both defendants pleaded not guilty.

However, sources inside the administration told CBS News that there is significant concern in Washington because the New York indictment lacks money laundering charges.

Although the indictment alleges that Maduro provided diplomatic passports to traffickers and cover for money-laundering aircraft, several analysts and experts have expressed doubts about the strength of the argument that Maduro is the central figure in drug trafficking, recalling that official DEA reports indicate that most of the cocaine entering the United States comes directly from Colombia, bypassing Venezuelan territory.

The technical challenge of tracing the proceeds of corruption

Faced with these analytical doubts, prosecutors in South Florida are seeking to build a parallel case based on financial crimes. Historically, directly linking the upper echelons of Venezuelan power to bank accounts in the United States has been extremely complex due to the sophisticated methods of concealment and triangulation of money flows.

The most relevant judicial success in the District of Florida occurred in 2018, when former national treasurer Alejandro Andrade Cedeño received a prison sentence for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar money-laundering and currency-exchange network.

With the addition of Alex Saab to the current judicial scene, federal investigators are attempting to decipher the structure of the overbilling and kickback scheme for the state-run CLAP food program to connect those illicit funds to Maduro's direct entourage.

The Department of Justice has opted to maintain an institutional reserve, and a spokesman for the entity declined to make formal comments on the ongoing investigations. Nicolás Maduro's legal representation has not issued any statement regarding the new criminal investigation in Miami.

The opening of this second criminal proceeding shows that the U.S. authorities prefer to diversify their legal options rather than relying solely on a drug trafficking indictment.