Relatives of five Venezuelan men who died during police raids filed a civil lawsuit against Venezuela’s deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro this week, accusing him of overseeing a police unit linked to extrajudicial killings and numerous acts of torture against Venezuelans over the past decade.
The lawsuit reportedly alleges that Maduro used the Special Action Forces (FAES), a unit created during his dictatorship in 2017, to carry out the execution of the five men and many others. FAES, which was ultimately succeeded by an equally reprehensible unit in 2022, was widely described by international outlets as a “death squad” of the Maduro regime during the years that it was active.
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The identities of the families suing Maduro have reportedly been protected for safety reasons. The plaintiffs are seeking financial compensation from Maduro.
Nicolás Maduro presently remains detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, facing multiple drug trafficking charges alongside his wife Cilia Flores in an ongoing trial led by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. The former dictator of Venezuela was arrested by U.S. forces during a law enforcement operation in Caracas on January 3 authorized by President Donald Trump. Maduro ruled Venezuela since early 2013 after his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, appointed him the new leader of his socialist regime during his last public appearance in December 2012.
(L-R) Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth deliver remarks at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, following Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela leading to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Saturday, January 3, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
In July 2017, Maduro launched FAES, a special forces police unit with the purported goal of “fighting crime” in Venezuela. Rather than carrying out its alleged purpose, the United Nations and other international organizations accused FAES of being yet another branch of the Maduro regime’s repressive apparatus.
According to Fox News, the civil lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, is centered around five incidents involving the victims and FAES officers between 2017 and 2021. The lawsuit also accuses FAES officers of torturing three of the plaintiffs’ relatives “by beating, detaining or forcing them to witness the killings before they were denied justice through Venezuela’s judicial system.”
“Maduro used FAES as a political instrument and mechanism of social control to violently suppress dissent, terrorize low-income neighborhoods and eliminate political opposition,” the lawsuit reportedly reads, according to Euronews. “In fact, FAES is widely considered a ‘death squad’ or ‘extermination group.’”
The complain reportedly details that FAES officers routinely entered homes before dawn, wearing black clothing and face coverings, carrying out the extrajudicial killings and staging crime scenes to make it appear that the victims “resisted authority.”
A truck of FAES (Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales – Special Action Forces) on March 10, 2020, in Caracas, Venezuela. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Getty Images)
The families argued that they have been unable to obtain justice in Venezuela because prosecutors either refused to pursue investigations or failed to hold senior officials accountable, leaving them without an effective legal remedy in their home country.
The Venezuelan socialist regime, currently led by “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez, maintains a stranglehold on every branch of government in the nation, including its judiciary.
By 2020, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) identified FAES as one of the police units most involved in extrajudicial killings and gross human rights violations — actions committed during purported “security operations” to fight crime in Venezuela. Per the U.N. office, FAES was responsible for 59 percent of all documented killings by Venezuelan security forces. Reuters reported in 2020 that convicted criminals had been allegedly recruited into FAES.
FAES’ launch in 2017 coincided with the phasing out of the “Operations for People’s Liberation” (OLP), a series of “security operations” between 2015 and 2017 also accused of widespread extrajudicial killings, tortures, and other human rights violations against Venezuelans. The OHCHR documented 413 people killed during the OLPs, “sometimes shot at point blank range.”
The Venezuelan socialist regime replaced FAES in 2022 with its current successor, the Directorate of Strategic and Tactical Actions (DAET). The new directorate, however, appeared to be a simple nomenclature change, as U.N. experts found that DAET engaged in the same extrajudicial killings and other gross human right violations committed by FAES in the preceding years.
Like FAES, DAET is a branch of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), a police force under the jurisdiction of the Venezuelan Interior Ministry — currently led by Diosdado Cabello, one of the socialist regime’s most powerful individuals, and a long-suspected drug lord. Cabello, who is also the Secretary-General of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), oversees the Venezuelan regime’s entire repressive apparatus.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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