Trump Treasury sanctions Venezuelan VP El Aissami for cocaine trafficking tied to Maduro inner circle

Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Venezuelan Executive Vice President Tareck El Aissami under the Kingpin Act, freezing his U.S. assets and blocking transactions with him. OFAC simultaneously sanctioned his business associate Samark Lopez Bello, alleging both had facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in cocaine shipments from Venezuela. The action was the first time a sitting Latin American vice president had been designated a drug kingpin, and it named Maduro's inner circle as a trafficking network.