The Trump administration has put Venezuela’s hardline interior minister on notice that he could be at the top of its target list unless he helps interim leader Delcy Rodriguez meet US demands following the toppling of Nicolas Maduro.
Diosdado Cabello, who controls security forces accused of widespread human rights abuses, is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists that President Donald Trump has decided to rely on as temporary rulers to maintain stability during a transition period.
But American officials are especially concerned that Cabello, given his record of repression and history of rivalry with Rodriguez, could play the spoiler and are seeking to force his cooperation even as they look for ways to eventually push him out of power and into exile.
The US has communicated to Cabello via intermediaries that if he is defiant, he could face a similar fate to Maduro and whisked away to New York to face prosecution on ‘narco-terrorism’ charges, or could see his life in danger.
Cabello is in charge of the apparatus of the state, which has long been accused of grievously abusing Venezuelans by, among other things, killing civilians outside the confines of the law, sexually abusing and humiliating girls and women, and planting evidence and weapons on innocent people.
According to a UN 2019 report into the state of human rights in Venezuela, the Special Action Forces (FAES) has regularly taken part in the extrajudicial executions of people, particularly in Venezuela’s slums, since its inception in 2016.
The UN found that FAES operatives dressed head to toe in black would regularly arrive at homes across slums in unmarked black pickup trucks while armed to the teeth.
The report read: ‘Families of the victims described FAES breaking into their houses, taking their belongings, and exercising gender-based violence against women and girls, including forced nudity.
Diosdado Cabello (pictured), who controls security forces accused of widespread human rights abuses, is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists that President Donald Trumphas decided to rely on as temporary rulers
‘They would separate young men from other family members before shooting them. According to their relatives, almost all of the victims had one or more shots in the chest’.
Operatives from FAES, which has long been accused of a political tool of Maduro, would also regularly plant evidence and justify killings by shooting their weapons into suggest a full confrontation had taken place.
The report read: ‘In many cases, FAES brought the victims to hospital even though they were already dead, apparently with the intention of manipulating the bodies and modifying the crime scene’.
Also accused of abuse are the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) and Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), two intelligence agencies.
They have been accused of torture, using horrific methods include rape, electric shocks and waterboarding.
The UN report read: ‘Women and men were subjected to one or more forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags, water boarding, beatings, sexual violence, water and food deprivation, stress positions and exposure to extreme temperatures.
‘Security forces and intelligence services, particularly SEBIN and DGCIM, routinely resort to such practices to extract information and confessions, intimidate, and punish the detainees’.
Taking out Cabello could be risky, possibly motivating pro-government motorcycle groups, known as The Colectivos, to take to the streets, unleashing the chaos Washington wants to avoid.
An explosion rocks Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning during a US military operation which resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad as they make their way to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on January 5, 2026
The Colectivos are a group of paramilitary militias that still support deposed leader Nicolas Maduro and have been searching vehicles at checkpoints.
The bikers, many of them masked and armed with Kalashnikovs, have searched phones and cars looking for evidence of people backing Trump’s action in Caracas as an unofficial tool of the state.
In the wake of Maduro’s arrest, a 90-day state of emergency put in place by the Venezuelan government orders police to ‘immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack by the United States.’
Many of the members of Colectivos have been seen posing with Maduro’s Interior, Justice and Peace Minister Diosdado Cabello, who still clings tight to the notion that Maduro is the nation’s lawful president.
‘Here, the unity of the revolutionary force is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations,’ Cabello said in a statement through the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
A video of Cabello – who has a bounty of $50million on his head in the US for drug trafficking – with the militia members that has circulated on social media sees them chanting a slogan that translates to: ‘Always loyal, never traitors.’
Also on the list of potential targets is defence minister Vladimir Padrino, who is under a US drug trafficking indictment and has a multimillion-dollar bounty on his head.
‘This remains a law enforcement operation, and we are not done yet,’ said a US Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Colectivos are a group of paramilitary militias that still support deposed leader Nicolas Maduro and have been searching vehicles at checkpoints
Gangs of armed men on motorcycles are patrolling the streets of Caracas, looking for supporters of Donald Trump and his military operation in Venezuela with the support of at least one key government official
U.S. officials see Padrino’s collaboration as crucial for avoiding a power vacuum due to his command of the armed forces.
They believe he is less dogmatic than Cabello and more likely to toe the US line while seeking his own safe exit, the source briefed on administration thinking said.
A senior Trump administration official declined to answer Reuters’ specific questions but said in a statement: ‘The President is speaking about exerting maximum leverage with the remaining elements in Venezuela and ensuring they cooperate with the United States by halting illegal migration, stopping drug flows, revitalizing oil infrastructure, and doing what is right for the Venezuelan people.’
Venezuela’s communications ministry, which handles all press requests for the government, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.