The USA increased during the summer the reward for information that leads to the arrest of Maduro after accusing him of smuggling narcotics into the USA with the help of cartels.
He is one of the world's largest narcotics dealers and a threat to our national security, said the USA's Minister of Justice Pam Bondi at the beginning of August.
This did not fall on fertile ground with Maduro.
This week I will activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territory – they are prepared, activated and armed, said Maduro in Venezuelan state TV.
The USA has, according to reports, sent military vessels to the southern parts of the Caribbean to further intensify the hunt for narcotics smugglers from Latin America.
According to Venezuela's Minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela has sent out ships that patrol the country's waters.
According to Pam Bondi, Maduro uses terrorist-stamped narcotics cartels, including the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, to smuggle in deadly narcotics into the USA.
She claims that the USA's federal narcotics police authority (DEA) has now seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, of which seven tons are linked to Maduro personally.
The USA's authorities have also seized over 700 million dollars of assets linked to Maduro, including two private planes, she says further.
Venezuela is under harsh sanctions from Washington and Maduro, who came to power in 2013, has over the years repeatedly claimed that the USA is in the process of removing him. The authoritarian president and his socialist party have clung to power through elections whose results have been questioned by the international community, including the EU, the USA, and the UN.
