prosecutors

Caracas, October 6, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The US Justice Department has urged New York District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to reject Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores’ sovereign immunity claims amid their ongoing legal case.

In a court filing submitted on October 2, prosecutors told the court that Maduro and Flores’ motions to dismiss their indictments “should be denied.”

The Venezuelan president and first lady, who is also a legislator, were kidnapped in Caracas by US forces on January 3. They were charged with drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons possession, with Maduro additionally facing a “narco-terrorism” accusation.

The pair’s defense teams filed motions to dismiss the case in September, arguing that their respective positions in the Venezuelan government should make them immune to criminal prosecution in a third country.

In response, the Justice Department stated that the recognition of a foreign head of state is the exclusive competency of the executive branch, and that Washington has not recognized Maduro since 2019. Historically, US courts have deferred to the White House and State Department on foreign policy matters.

However, in the ongoing case, Justice Department officials sought to bolster their argument by stating that the Venezuelan government, led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, has declined to invoke immunity for Maduro and Flores.

“If Venezuela wished to assert its view that the defendants were entitled to immunity in this, it could have,“ the submitted document read. “The defendants’ attempt to claim the contrary is an admission that such silence is devastating to their claims.”

The prosecutors pointed to an ongoing civil lawsuit in Florida against Maduro, Rodríguez, and other defendants, where the Venezuelan government, through its US embassy, requested that the Trump administration communicate to the respective court that the acting president should “enjoy absolute immunity from judicial proceedings in foreign domestic courts.”

The State Department sent a letter in June calling on the Florida district court to “promptly dismiss the proceedings.” The White House likewise communicated to the court that all claims against Rodríguez should be “dismissed without prejudice.”

In August 2025, three US nationals who were imprisoned in Venezuela sued Maduro, Rodríguez, and several other current and former state officials. The plaintiffs claimed to have suffered “torture” and to have been used in “hostage diplomacy.” The judge issued a default ruling after Maduro and other defendants failed to show and awarded $314 million in damages to the plaintiffs.

“Venezuela did not request immunity in this case, despite every opportunity to do so. Indeed, there is no doubt that the current Venezuelan government knows how to request immunity,” the Justice Department’s recent filing continued.

Prosecutors went on to claim that the Trump administration’s foreign policy views, coupled with the Venezuelan government not explicitly invoking immunity, should outweigh the defense’s assertion that the United Nations recognized Maduro’s presidency.

Hellerstein is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the pre-trial motions to dismiss on November 17 before issuing a ruling. If the trial goes forward, it will begin on June 1, 2027.

Caracas has not commented on the latest developments in Maduro and Flores’ legal case. In recent months, Venezuelan officials have occasionally expressed hope that the two will eventually return to the country but without demanding their immediate release.

Rodríguez made no mention of Maduro and Flores’ kidnapping and prosecution during her recent trip to New York for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. In a July interview, she claimed that Maduro has the right to “demonstrate the truth” before the US Justice system but did not call for his liberation.

The Venezuelan government is covering the pair’s legal defense costs after the US Treasury Department lifted restrictions blocking it.

In his UN speech on September 22, Trump celebrated the military operation that led to the abduction of Maduro, whom he called an “outlaw dictator.” Trump and Rodríguez met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, with the Venezuelan leader thanking the US president for supporting “Venezuela’s reinsertion into multilateral spaces.”

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

Chinese technology giant Huawei is facing a landmark criminal trial in the United States amid Washington’s long-running tech rivalry with Beijing.

The trial began in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on September 9, with US prosecutors portraying Huawei as a criminal enterprise that spent two decades stealing technology from US companies, deceiving banks and circumventing sanctions on Iran.

Huawei has pleaded not guilty and says the US government is attempting to turn ordinary business disputes and the actions of individual employees into evidence of a company-wide conspiracy.

The trial is expected to last about three months and overlaps with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September 23-25 visit to Washington, where trade, artificial intelligence, tariffs and access to critical technologies are likely to be on the agenda.

Here is what you need to know:

What are the allegations against Huawei?

US prosecutors have accused the company of racketeering, money laundering, bank and wire fraud, sanctions violations, obstruction and conspiring to steal trade secrets from five US technology companies.

Prosecutors say the alleged wrongdoing stretched from about 1999 to 2020.

“Theft, lies, cover-up,” Justice Department lawyer Taylor Stout said in his opening remarks.

Prosecutors allege Huawei stole technology, including internet-router source code from Cisco and a robotic arm used by T-Mobile to test phones.

They also accuse Huawei of concealing the nature of its operations in Iran to move US dollars through the financial system despite US sanctions.

The government also alleges that Huawei supplied equipment that could help Iranian authorities monitor protesters during demonstrations in 2009.

How has Huawei responded?

Huawei, a major manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, denies any wrongdoing.

The tech giant’s lawyer Brian Heberlig told jurors the case was about “competition, not conspiracy. Innovation, not theft. Ordinary business dealings, not criminal conduct.”

Heberlig accused prosecutors of “cherry-picking isolated events” to construct a conspiracy that did not exist. Huawei’s defence says some incidents involved individual employees whose actions were dealt with internally, rather than reflecting company policy.

He told jurors that prosecutors will describe routine activities by global tech companies “but will twist those ordinary activities to try to make them look criminal”.

Huawei separately described the broader prosecution as an attempt to undermine its competitiveness, saying the US government’s “overarching narrative is demonstrably false” and that it had “the utmost respect for intellectual property”.

The case originated during Donald Trump’s first presidency. His administration placed Huawei on a US trade blacklist in 2019 and pushed allies to exclude the company from 5G networks, arguing its equipment could present national security and espionage risks.

Huawei has repeatedly denied that its technology is used for spying.

What has China’s response been?

Beijing has strongly criticised the prosecution, which has come weeks ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the US.

On Thursday, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said “the Chinese government firmly opposes the US side’s suppression and containment of Chinese enterprises”, when asked about the case and the American prosecutor’s “criminal enterprise” description.

China “firmly supports Chinese enterprises in safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests”, the spokesperson said at a regular news conference.

What is Huawei, and has the tech giant faced investigations before?

Huawei is one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. It also produces smartphones and has become increasingly important to China’s semiconductor and AI industries.

Its activities have drawn scrutiny well beyond the current US trial.

Belgian prosecutors launched an investigation in 2025 into suspected bribery involving the European Parliament allegedly for Huawei’s benefit.

The European Parliament subsequently suspended access for Huawei lobbyists. Huawei said it had “zero-tolerance” for corruption and would cooperate with authorities.

Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou made worldwide headlines in 2018 when she was arrested on a US warrant after landing in Vancouver, straining both US-China and China-Canada relations.

The warrant was filed after a sealed indictment accused her and the company of bank fraud for misleading HSBC and other banks about Huawei’s business in Iran.

She returned to China in 2021 under a deferred prosecution agreement, and the charges against her were later dismissed.

Admissions Meng made as part of that agreement can, however, be presented as evidence in Huawei’s current trial after a US judge ruled them admissible in June.

They are legally separate but form part of a much wider economic and technological competition between Washington and Beijing.

Huawei became one of the most prominent targets of US restrictions during Trump’s first term.

Since then, the rivalry has expanded from telecommunications and 5G into semiconductors and AI, with Washington restricting China’s access to advanced US chips and chipmaking technology.

Last week, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, warned that a “Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the US and the world” and urged Washington to maintain restrictions on cutting-edge AI tech. He also called for action against alleged “distillation” of US models by Chinese AI laboratories.

China’s Foreign Ministry on September 14 accused the US tech giant of “fearmongering”.

“Fomenting various threats, engaging in confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global governance of artificial intelligence and is not in the interests of any party,” said ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun.

The state-backed Global Times newspaper went further, describing Amodei’s proposal as a “Cold War playbook” whose real purpose was to curb Chinese AI development and preserve US technological dominance.

China and the US were engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war at the beginning of Trump’s presidency in 2025. The trade war ended in a truce, but the world’s two largest economies have failed to strike a trade deal.

Beijing, meanwhile, has used its dominance of critical minerals as leverage and accelerated efforts to build domestic alternatives to American technology.

Currently, China controls most of the world’s rare earth minerals, including metals that are necessary for the manufacture of many technological items, from smartphones to fighter jets. The world’s second-largest economy has 60 percent of these minerals and processes 90 percent of the world’s supply.

In October, Beijing announced plans to require foreign companies to obtain permission to export Chinese rare earth equipment or material.

This meant companies anywhere in the world would need a licence to export rare earth magnets and certain semiconductor materials that contain even trace amounts of minerals sourced from China or produced using Chinese technology.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said its export controls on rare earths, which Trump had labelled “surprising” and “very hostile”, were introduced in response to a series of US measures.

CALIFORNIA: Three people were charged by federal authorities in Los Angeles on Wednesday with stealing $12 million in federal and state homelessness aid to pay for real estate, luxury trips and vintage vehicles.

It was the second such arrest of people on federal fraud charges in Southern California this week, as President Donald Trump’s administration tries to emphasize a crackdown on fraud and waste in government and aid programs. On Tuesday, 12 people were charged with stealing more than $10 million in federal childcare aid.

The three defendants each worked for or ran Southern California-based nonprofit organizations, which often contracted with city, county, state or federal agencies to provide aid or money to find housing and social services for homeless people. Prosecutors allege that the defendants used funds from those contracts to pay personal expenses, accepted bribes, and billed for services that were never provided.

“Make no mistake, HUD and the Trump administration will not tolerate the theft and abuse of taxpayers in this country,” Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner said at a news conference.

Turner used the indictments to accuse the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which approved grants to these defendants, of being negligent with taxpayer dollars.

Taxpayer aid spent on video games, nightclubs

Two defendants, Lakiya Malone, 48, and Michael Young, 46, were arrested early Wednesday in Los Angeles. A third defendant charged with wire fraud, Donye Mitchell, 55, is considered a fugitive.

Young is the founder of Home At Last, a nonprofit that took in more than $118 million in public funds since 2019 for its stated mission of providing housing and aid to homeless people.

Federal prosecutors say Young instead created shell companies that he claimed were independent contractors but were, in fact, controlled by him. This alleged self-dealing allowed Young to be paid both at Home At Last and overbill federal and local authorities, prosecutors said. They say Young misused an estimated $7.5 million in taxpayer funds through fake contractors and vendors.

Young used the proceeds to take luxury trips to Tahiti, and used funds to open a nightclub in Inglewood called the Six Seven Five Lounge and other commercial real estate projects, prosecutors allege.

Mitchell is the CEO of Big Blue Umbrella, which was awarded more than $1.2 million from a federally supported nonprofit for housing and mental health care aid. Prosecutors say Mitchell not only misstated his organization’s ability to provide such services, but also used money from the award to pay off his credit card debts, give funds to family members, buy video games and pay legal expenses for an unrelated case.

Malone was charged with accepting more than $180,000 in bribes from another homelessness-aid nonprofit. Malone allegedly not only accepted bribes but also placed people in homeless aid programs who weren’t homeless.

Separately, federal prosecutors announced that a fourth person pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges for stealing at least $2 million in homeless aid. Alexander Soofer, the executive director of Abundant Blessings, admitted to working with Malone to bill federal and state authorities for homelessness aid services when there were no participants in his programs.

Big money, little documentation

Some 72,000 to 75,000 people live in shelters or encampments in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, making it one of the largest homeless populations in the country. It has been a significant issue in Southern California for years, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made it a cornerstone of her 2022 election campaign.

City and county authorities spend roughly $1 billion a year trying to help the homeless population, often using LAHSA to coordinate aid. While significant funds are spent to address the issue, city and county reviews have repeatedly found that the programs lacked appropriate recordkeeping, audit trails and documentation.

Nathan Hochman, the district attorney for Los Angeles County, told reporters that the public should expect more investigations and indictments into the misuse of homeless aid funds. Hochman’s office’s investigation into Soofer and Abundant Blessings led to his indictment earlier this year.

“I can assure this is the beginning of these prosecutions and we are far, far from the end,” he said, adding that his office’s investigation had found that the only “abundant blessings” Soofer provided were to his friends and family.

Some of the Trump administration’s efforts to go after fraud and abuse of government benefit programs have faced criticism and legal challenges. In December, Vice President JD Vance, who chairs the administration’s task force on the subject, amplified a YouTube video of a popular right-wing influencer accusing childcare providers in Minnesota, many of them immigrants from Somalia, of running scams. State authorities visited the centers and found nearly all of them operating normally.

Nonetheless, the administration launched a massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Officials later attempted to freeze federal funds for childcare in five Democratic-led states but were halted by a lawsuit.