Two nephews of Nicolas Maduro's wife caught and convicted of trying to smuggle 1,700 pounds of cocaine into the USA

Venezuela's first family implicated in cocaine trafficking

Efrain Antonio Campo Flores & Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas with police

Reuters reported "[t]wo nephews of Venezuela’s first lady were sentenced to 18 years in prison on [December 14, 2017] following their convictions in New York on U.S. drug trafficking charges." The New York State attorney reported on the conviction over twitter.

Acting USA Kim: For their brazen cocaine trafficking scheme, and thanks to @DEAHQ, Efrain Antonio Campo Flores & Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas will spend significant time in US prison

— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) December 14, 2017

The two men were arrested in Haiti and yesterday found guilty of trying "to smuggle 1,700 pounds (800kg) of cocaine into the United States."


Providing context
There have been numerous news reports about the Venezuelan regime's links to international drug trafficking, and that U.S. investigations point to high ranking  officials in Venezuela turning the country "into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering," but little is said about the Castro regime's decades long involvement in it that still continues.  Panamanian police seized more than 400 kilograms of cocaine in a Cuban ship on its way to Belgium in April of 2016. 

Venezuela: Global hub of drug trafficking Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post reported on the Venezuela, FARC, Cuba trafficking axis on May 24, 2015 in the article "A drug cartel’s power in Venezuela":

Ever since Colombian commandos captured the laptop of a leader of the FARC organization eight years ago, it’s been known that Chávez gave the Colombian narcoguerrillas sanctuary and allowed them to traffic cocaine from Venezuela to the United States with the help of the Venezuelan army. But not until a former Chávez bodyguard [ Leamsy Salazar] defected to the United States in January did the scale of what is called the “Cartel of the Suns ” start to become publicly known. [...] The day after Salazar’s arrival in Washington, Spain’s ABC newspaper published a detailed account of the emerging case against Cabello, and last month, ABC reporter Emili Blasco followed up with a book laying out the allegations of Salazar and other defectors, who say Cuba’s communist regime and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah have been cut in on the trafficking. That was followed by a lengthy report last week in the Wall Street Journal that said Cabello’s cartel had turned Venezuela into “a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering.”