Senate bill sets $100 million reward for arrest, conviction of Nicols Maduro

WASHINGTON – Senator Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio introduce legislation to increase the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Nicolás Maduro.

The Securing Timely Opportunities for Payment and Maximizing Awards for Detaining Unlawful Regime Officials (STOP MADURO) Act would increase the maximum reward amount from $15 million to a maximum of $100 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro.

This comes after the July 28 vote in which Maduro was declared the winner despite strong evidence that opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, which drew international condemnation that the vote lacked transparency.

Senator Scott was at an event supporting Florida’s Jewish community at Florida International University on Friday, when he commented about the recent bill.

“I was with Erik Prince last week. He said, ‘you know if we raise the ante on catching Maduro to $100 million, then maybe something will happen’. So right now, it’s 15. We can do it without taking any taxpayer money. So, I have a bill that is going to take non-taxpayer money, money that we have confiscated from Maduro and his cronies, and we are going to raise the bar from $15 to $100 million. We are going to get this guy stopped. He is a narco-trafficker. He is trying to steal an election right now. The way he treats Venezuelans is despicable, so I’m very hopeful,” said Scott.

The reward would be paid out by the federal government using seized assets already being withheld from Maduro, officials of the Maduro regime and their co-conspirators, not taxpayer funds.

“The U.S. must do more to arrest narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro. I’ve called for Interpol to issue a red alert notice to facilitate this, and this legislation builds on that call by increasing the reward for his arrest to $100 million. Maduro is one of the Venezuelan regime’s most corrupt schemers and it’s past time he is held accountable for his crimes,” Senator Marco Rubio said.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida and its federal law enforcement partners who have brought dozens of criminal charges against high-level regime officials, asset seizures total approximately $450 million dollars.