Air France 385: How a Drug Bust Became a U.S. Smear Campaign Against Venezuela Maduro

Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

In January 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled an indictment alleging that President Nicolás Maduro was complicit in international drug trafficking, referencing the September 2013 Air France Flight 385 cocaine seizure as purported evidence. On the surface, the seizure appears to implicate Venezuelan authorities. Yet, a deeper examination, through independent reporting, judicial records, and contemporaneous political context, shows that the operation was a routine law-enforcement investigation, fully documented and prosecuted, and not orchestrated by the Venezuelan president.

Historical information from 2013 also reveals how Venezuelan opposition figures, most notably Henrique Capriles Radonski, leveraged the Air France incident for political gain. Capriles, co-founder of Primero Justicia, had longstanding ties to U.S.-funded democracy networks, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), institutions known for supporting opposition political capacity-building and regime change strategies across Latin America, and around the World. Many reports, including those from Aporrea and Venezuela Analysis provides a fair account of these organisations’ destabilisation operations in Venezuela. Interestingely, John McCain served as chairman (head) of the International Republican Institute (IRI) from January 1993 until 2018, before Secretary of State Marc Rubio became an IRI Board Member in 2018.

SEE MORE: Maduro’s Defense Could Expose CIA Drug Operations

IMAGE: In 2013, Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles demanded today that high-ranking officials be prosecuted for the discovery of 1.3 tons of cocaine found in France on a plane that departed from Venezuela “Diario El Comercio. Todos los derechos reservados.” (Source: El Comercio)

The 2013 narrative framing, when combined with U.S. prosecutorial strategy, provides insight into how the indictment could politicise a law-enforcement incident into a story of alleged presidential complicity, despite the absence of concrete evidence.

It is worth noting that the former head of Venezuela’s military counterintelligence, Hugo Carvajal (“El Pollo”), the US prosecution’s key witness in the Maduro case, was appointed by Maduro himself in April 2013, only five months before the Air France Flight 385 drug bust in Paris. This should definitely raise significant concerns regarding the credibility of this witness.

SEE MORE: From Chavismo to the Witness Stand: How Hugo Carvajal Became Washington’s Secret Weapon

The Air France Cocaine Seizure and Venezuelan Institutional Response

On 11 September 2013, French authorities seized 1.3 tonnes of cocaine in 31 suitcases on Air France Flight 385 bound for Paris, one of the largest metropolitan cocaine busts in France’s history. The luggage did not correspond to any passengers, and packages were cleverly labelled with fictitious names.

Far from accidental, French authorities were conducting judicially sanctioned surveillance, which led to the seizure. When suspects attempted to transport, with a truck, part of the cocaine to Luxembourg, they were followed and intercepted. Investigators employed precise law enforcement techniques, tracking vehicles and coordinating with airport authorities to secure the remainder of the shipment. (French source: bfmtv.com, lepoint.fr)

The Venezuelan Public Prosecutor’s Office responded with equal diligence, requesting investigative dossiers from France and arresting 22 individuals, including eight members of the Bolivarian National Guard, airport personnel, and Air France staff. Charges ranged from aggravated drug trafficking to conspiracy. Additional arrests included a Venezuelan passenger attempting to smuggle cocaine, highlighting routine airport security enforcement rather than evidence of presidential involvement.

French authorities confirmed that the aircraft, which carried 254 passengers, baggage containers, freight, and pallets, complied with all standard procedures. The seizure was therefore part of an active law enforcement operation, coordinated across international jurisdictions, rather than the result of a covert presidential directive.

Henrique Capriles and the Political Instrumentalisation of the Air France Case

Henrique Capriles Radonski, leader of Primero Justicia and governor of the state of Miranda, immediately seized upon the 2013 seizure to construct a politically potent narrative against Maduro. He publicly criticised the government for failing to pursue high-ranking officials, framing the incident as emblematic of a “narco-state” and claiming that drug trafficking was “having a party” in Venezuela. An El Comercio report mentions that Via his Twitter account (Now X), Capriles declared:

“As always, some officials pay the price, but the big fish are untouchable.”

After Chávez’s death in March 2013, Maduro became interim president and narrowly won a hard‑fought election with about 50.7 % of the vote against Henrique Capriles, highlighting deep national divisions. Capriles pretended to campaign on national reconciliation, but Maduro wasn’t buying it, and quickly reacted, denouncing Capriles and the opposition as foreign agents.

A 2012 report from Venezuela Analysis indicates that Capriles’s approach mirrored his longstanding strategy of political destabilisation. In 2002, during the short-lived coup against Hugo Chávez, he was involved in events surrounding the Cuban embassy, demonstrating his willingness to operate at the margins of legality and leverage crises for political effect.

Furthermore, the report cites the work of attorney and investigative journalist Eva Golinger, who exposed Capriles and Primero Justicia (Justice First)’s link to U.S.-backed opposition networks such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a known CIA front, and the International Republican Institute (IRI). Declassified and archival sources show:

“…the IRI has been working closely with Primero Justicia to develop the party’s platform.” (aporrea.org)

“The NED also made a major grant to the IRI for its programs in Venezuela, increasing its funding from $50,000 in 2000 to $399,998 in 2001… [IRI] also funded and worked closely with Primero Justicia…” (venezuelanalysis.com)

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According to the report, U.S. agencies are the principal financiers of Venezuela’s opposition, providing roughly $6 million annually, a level of support the FRIDE report explicitly links to efforts to undermine Chávez, and later the Maduro presidency. While Washington had played only a limited role in Venezuelan “democracy assistance” prior to Chávez, U.S. engagement expanded after 2002 to focus on backing opposition parties and NGOs through organisations including the Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI), the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), and the Open Society Institute, known today as the Open Society Foundations (OSF) of George Soros.  Declassified documents obtained by investigative journalist Eva Golinger, through FOIA requests reveal that this funding supported not only opposition electoral campaigns, through party training, messaging, platform development, and campaign strategy, but also anti-democratic actions such as the April 2002 coup attempt, subsequent strikes, destabilization efforts, and economic sabotage, demonstrating a level of involvement that went well beyond financial aid and constituted direct interference in Venezuela’s internal political affairs.

VIDEO: Attorney Eva Golinger weighs in on why the US is escalating pressure on Venezuela now, despite long-standing tensions and the absence of any new security threat.(Source: Al Arabiya English)

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Furthermore, a significant number of the over 1600 State Department documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010 pertain to the continuous endeavours of US diplomacy aimed at isolating and opposing the Venezuelan government, with actions that include espionage, propaganda and disinformation.

The 2013 cocaine seizure in France serves as a prime illustration of how the accusations made by the opposition against Maduro and his inner circle were merely another effort to undermine the Chavismo movement and not based on concrete evidence. Over the years, this NGO network empowered Henrique Capriles, allowing him and the opposition to amplify the narrative that Maduro and senior officials were drug traffickers, a narrative now echoed in parts of the U.S. indictment despite the lack of independent evidence. Critics and Maduro supporters describe Capriles as nothing short of a US puppet.

The Cartel de los Soles and the U.S. Legal Narrative

Another central piece of opposition rhetoric that entered U.S. prosecutorial framing was the “Cartel de los Soles.” Capriles frequently referenced this concept, linking top officials to systemic drug trafficking. Yet historical review reveals that the term originated in the 1990s Venezuelan media as a colloquial reference to corrupt military officials, not a structured, hierarchical cartel.

Early U.S. indictments presented Maduro as the head of this alleged cartel, portraying it as a formal organisation. By January 2026, however, the Department of Justice revised the indictment, dropping claims that Maduro led a defined cartel. The document now refers only to a “patronage system” of corrupt officials, signalling an implicit acknowledgement that the earlier “Cartel de los Soles” framing lacked concrete evidence.

This retreat is particularly telling because it highlights how political narratives, once constructed domestically by opposition leaders like Capriles and amplified internationally, can influence prosecutorial discourse, even when lacking substantiated evidence. The 2026 indictment, by retaining vague accusations of corruption while abandoning the cartel framing, inadvertently underscores the difference between narrative construction and legal fact.

Closing Analysis

The 2013 Air France cocaine seizure was a landmark law-enforcement case, meticulously investigated by French authorities and followed by Venezuelan judicial cooperation. Arrests, evidence-gathering, and prosecutions confirm that the incident was not orchestrated by the presidency.

However, Henrique Capriles and his party leveraged the event to construct a politically charged narrative, targeting Maduro and high officials in ways that reshaped public perception and influenced international discourse. The term Cartel de los Soles, initially a journalistic shorthand for corruption, was elevated into U.S. legal framing, only to be scaled back in the 2026 indictment.

Taken together, these facts show that the U.S. indictment rests as much on political storytelling and opposition framing as on independently verifiable evidence, demonstrating the risks of conflating political narrative with legal proof.

SEE MORE: From Sanctions to Abduction: Venezuela, the Rule of Law, and America’s Imperial Reflex

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Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2026/01/12/air-france-385-how-a-drug-bust-became-a-u-s-smear-campaign-against-venezuela-maduro/