In possibly a decisive move, Republican senators ask to increase the reward for Maduro's capture

Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott introduced a bill to request an increase to the value of the reward for capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

In March 2020, then U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced several drug trafficking charges against Maduro and a $15 million reward for "information leading to the arrest" of the dictator.

Now, Rubio and Scott introduced the bill in order to make the effort to bring Maduro to American justice more attractive. In addition they propose, according to the bill entitled the Stop Maduro Act, that the reward money will not come out of taxpayers' pockets but from the "assets that the United States has already seized from Maduro".

According to Scott, the value of the assets amounts to $450 million.

"The United States must do more to stop the narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro. I have asked Interpol to issue a red alert to facilitate this and this legislation builds on that request by increasing the reward for Maduro's arrest to $100 million," Marco Rubio said in a statement.

"Maduro is one of the most corrupt conspirators in the Venezuelan regime and it is time for him to be held accountable for his crimes," he added.

This initiative from the Senate is expected to be joined by a bipartisan bill from the House of Representatives, introduced by Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart; and supported by Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Republicans Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar.

In a statement, Senator Rick Scott said that "the time has come to free Venezuela from the illegitimate regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro. For years, I have urged the Biden-Harris administration to bring the full weight of the federal government to bear to end the Maduro regime, but it has refused (...) Trump did the right thing by offering a bounty of up to $15 million, but it's time to up the ante."

"It is clear that Maduro will not step down on his own, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill to free Venezuela and the world from Maduro's oppression," he added.

Scott stressed the importance of recognizing Edmundo González as the legitimate winner of the elections, something that the U.S. Congress has not yet done - but which the European Parliament and the Spain´s Congress have already done.

For Senators Rubio and Scott, increasing the reward for the capture of Maduro could be a decisive move to bring down the Chavista regime.

In a press conference, Scott affirmed that he got the idea of increasing the price of the reward after a conversation with businessman and military contractor Erik Prince, founder of the mercenary company BlackWater, who is interested in carrying out operations against Nicolás Maduro.

"I was with Erik Prince last week. He said if we raise the reward to $100 million, something can probably happen," Scott declared to several media outlets.

Price, who promotes an initiative called Ya Casi Venezuela that seeks to raise funds for an armed incursion in Venezuela, has been sending messages to officials of the Chavista regime for months, telling them that "their time is near".