Who is Cilia Flores, the first lady of Venezuela captured by the United States?

When U.S. forces conducted a nighttime raid on Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, they not only dragged President Nicolas Maduro out of his compound and put him on a flight to New York, they also took his wife.

Cilia Flores, 69, has long been considered one of Venezuela’s most powerful figures, a political player in her own right who for decades shaped the country’s fortunes.

After years leading Venezuela’s National Assembly, she helped consolidate her husband’s grip on power after his victory in the 2013 presidential election.

As First Lady, she was nicknamed “First Warrior” by Maduro. But in this role, she publicly took a back seat, presenting a more family-friendly face in the face of what critics say is a brutal regime.

She hosted a television show, Con Cilia en Familia, and made occasional appearances on public television to dance salsa with her husband. But behind the scenes, she is considered one of Maduro’s main advisers and the architect of his political survival.

Flores has faced allegations of corruption and nepotism, and in recent years his family members have been convicted of cocaine trafficking in U.S. courts.

She will now face drug and weapons charges in a New York court, alongside her husband – who has long rejected the charges as a pretext to force him from power.

Flores met Maduro in the early 1990s, when — as a promising young lawyer — she took up the defense of the conspirators of the failed 1992 coup attempt.

Chief among them: Hugo Chávez, the man who would later become president.

It was during these years that she met Maduro, who was working for Chávez as a security guard at the time.

“I met Cilia in life,” Maduro said. “She was the lawyer for several patriotic military officers in prison. But she was also the lawyer for Commander Chávez and, well, being the lawyer for Commander Chávez in prison… it’s hard.”

“I met her during those years of struggle, and then, well, she caught my eye.”

From then on, both of their destinies were linked to Chávez and his political movement, known as Chavismo.

After Chávez won the presidency in 1998, Flores quickly rose through the political ranks, joining the National Assembly in 2000 and becoming its leader in 2006.

For six years she led a virtually one-party parliament, with the main opposition parties refusing to participate in elections, saying they were not free and fair.

When Chávez died in 2013, Flores supported Maduro, who narrowly won the subsequent presidential election.

A few months later, the couple married, formalizing a years-long relationship in which they had lived together, raising children from previous relationships: three of his own and one of hers.

“She has become an essential part of the Maduro regime,” said José Enrique Arrioja, a Venezuelan journalist and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.

“She was not only Maduro’s emotional confidante, but also his professional confidante. And she was very motivated by power.”

Throughout her career, she faced numerous allegations of corruption.

In 2012, she was accused by unions of nepotism for influencing the hiring of up to 40 people, including many members of her family.

“My family came here and I’m very proud that they are my family. I will defend them,” she replied.

In November 2015, she found herself embroiled in the affair of the “Narco nephews”when two of his nephews – Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores – were arrested in Haiti as part of a sting operation by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

They were caught trying to smuggle 800 kg of cocaine into the United States.

Flores accused U.S. authorities of “kidnapping” his nephews, but a judge sentenced both men to 18 years in prison for drug trafficking. They were returned to Venezuela in 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange under the Biden administration.

But last month, the Trump administration announced new sanctions against the two nephews – as well as a third nephew, Carlos Erik Malpica Flores – with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying: “Nicolás Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people.”

“The Treasury holds the regime and its circle of cronies and corporations responsible for their continued crimes,” he added.

The newly unsealed indictment against Flores accuses him of – among other things – accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office.

“To her critics, she is seen as part of a brutal, deeply corrupt government that tramples human rights,” says Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow at Chatham House’s Latin America program.

“She was a power behind the throne,” he adds. “But like any good power behind the throne, you couldn’t really see her hand, so no one really knew how powerful she was.”

She is expected in court Monday.

BBC World