A report published by the Spanish newspaper ABC on Thursday claimed that Venezuela’s deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro spends his nights in prison yelling “I am the president” and claiming that he was “kidnapped” by the U.S.
Maduro, long wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges, led the Venezuelan socialist regime from March 2013 to January 3, 2026, the day the United States executed a law enforcement operation in Caracas to arrest him and his wife, Cilia Flores. The now-deposed dictator clung to power after the end of his first term in 2019 by holding sham presidential elections in 2018 and 2024.
Following their arrest in Caracas, the pair has remained detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn and are expected to appear before the court for a hearing on March 26. Maduro pleaded “not guilty” on January 5 and insists that he is the “president” of Venezuela, demanding that the Venezuelan state pay for his legal representation fees.
At press time, no official from the MDC has publicly disclosed information on the conditions of Maduro’s detainment at the Brooklyn prison. ABC, citing several unnamed sources with knowledge of the deposed dictator’s situation, claimed on Thursday that Maduro is presently detained at the MDC’s Special Housing Unit (SHU), a wing where, CNN reported in January, inmates are kept in “solitary confinement under destructive conditions.”
“Officially, it serves several purposes: disciplinary isolation, suicide prevention, and protection of high-profile or at-risk inmates,” ABC’s report read. “In practice, it involves almost permanent confinement under an isolation regime.”
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ABC detailed that many “famous” inmates first pass through the SHU under suicide prevention protocols, where they stay between 72 hours and a week. The sources claimed to ABC that, in Maduro’s case, his isolation is due to “prolonged security reasons,” as he is “probably the most high-profile inmate in the history of the facility” and, as such, the authorities “cannot afford an incident.”
One of the sources, which ABC identified as the lawyer of a Venezuelan inmate in a nearby cell block, relayed to the newspaper on behalf of their client that Maduro spends entire nights yelling in Spanish from his cell, which ABC reported as “three meters long by two meters wide, with a metal bed, a toilet, a sink, and a narrow window that barely lets in any natural light.”
According to the source, Maduro repeatedly yells that he was “kidnapped” and requests that messages are relayed to his family and other Venezuelan inmates in the prison. ABC detailed that the scene presents a “radical inversion” of Maduro’s public figure.
“I am the president of Venezuela! Tell my country that I have been kidnapped, that we are being mistreated here,” Maduro has reportedly yelled from inside his prison cell.
“The man of mandatory television broadcasts, of the balconies of the Miraflores Palace, of mass rallies, reduced to a voice banging on a metal door in Brooklyn,” ABC wrote. “The same man who until recently danced on television and defied Washington.”
Maduro is presently being represented in the ongoing drug trafficking case against him and Cilia Flores by American lawyer Barry Pollack, who represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the past. The deposed dictator stands accused of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices charges.
In late February, Pollack wrote to District Judge Alvin Hellerstein claiming that the administration of President Donald Trump is allegedly not allowing the Venezuelan state to pay for the dictator’s legal fees, and argued, “under Venezuelan law and custom, the government of Venezuela pays the expenses of the President and First Lady.”
Following Maduro’s arrest, the Venezuelan socialist regime is being led by “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez, who concurrently served as the deposed dictator’s vice president and oil minister at the time of his arrest. Over the past months, Rodríguez has openly collaborated with the United States and has reached several agreements with the U.S. government, including oil, gas, and critical minerals.
The U.S. and Venezuela formally agreed to restore diplomatic ties on March 5, ending a seven-year-long rupture ordered by Maduro in 2019 during that year’s political crisis, which erupted after Maduro’s fraudulent 2018 presidential “election.” Rodríguez has referred to Trump as a “friend” and “partner.”
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that – in a letter signed by Michael Kozak, senior bureau official in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs – the United States formally recognized Delcy Rodríguez as president of Venezuela and stressed that the U.S. has not recognized Maduro as head of state since January 23, 2019, noting that he is an indicted narco-terrorist who awaits trial for his crimes at a U.S. federal court.
The letter reportedly read:
Our engagement is focused on helping the Venezuelan people move forward through a phased process that creates the conditions for a peaceful transition to a democratically elected government. In order to facilitate this transition, the United States is recognizing Delcy Rodriguez as the sole Head of State, able to take action on behalf of Venezuela.
A spokesperson from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) declined to offer details to ABC on Maduro’s current situation and reportedly stated, “For security and privacy reasons, the BOP does not disclose the conditions of confinement of any person in its custody.”
“That is, for now, Nicolás Maduro’s situation in Brooklyn. Not that of a head of state surrounded by ministers, bodyguards, and cameras, but that of a defendant in pretrial detention, subjected to solitary confinement and the strict routine of a federal facility, awaiting a trial that could take months or even years to take place,” ABC concluded.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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