WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden pardoned and allowed the release of Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in exchange for seven Americans imprisoned in Venezuela .
This was detailed by US officials in statements to the press, just a few minutes after the Venezuelan government reported in a statement the release of “two young Venezuelans unjustly” detained in the United States, without that their identity be specified.
The two Venezuelans, nephews of the Venezuelan first lady, Cilia Flores, were sentenced in December 2017 in a New York court to serve 18 years in prison for drug trafficking.
Biden signed the order to pardon Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas “weeks ago”; but the exchange did not take place until now because the two parties had to finish the negotiations and resolve some logistical issues, detailed the aforementioned officials
These sources did not specify where the exchange took place and they only said that it took place in a “country between Venezuela and the United States”.
There, two planes landed, one from Venezuela and the other from the United States, the negotiators verified the identity of the subjects and the exchange took place, so that at this time the seven Americans are back home, detailed the officials.
Maduro’s relatives, arrested in Haiti on 10 November 2015 by agents of the Anti-Drug Agency of the United States (DEA) and immediately extradited to the United States, were serving their sentence in a Florida prison.2022