History and legislation in 2016; the former head of intelligence and confidant of Chávez was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2008, arrested in Spain in 2019, and pled guilty to narcoterrorism charges in the U.S. in 2025. Prior to the ongoing
crisis in Venezuela, the U.S.
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three current or former Venezuelan government officials in 2008, saying there was evidence they had materially helped the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the
illegal drug trade. In 2011, four allies of
Hugo Chávez were sanctioned for allegedly helping
FARC obtain weapons and smuggle drugs. U.S. President
Barack Obama signed the
Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014, imposing sanctions on Venezuelan individuals held responsible by the U.S. for
human rights violations during the
2014 Venezuelan protests. it held responsible for human rights abuses, repression and at least 43 deaths during demonstrations.
2017 in 2003, sanctioned by Canada, the European Union, Panama and the United States
Tareck El Aissami, Vice President of Economy and Minister for National Industry and Production, and his frontman Samark Jose Lopez Bello were named in February as significant international narcotics traffickers. Five U.S. companies in Florida and an airplane registered in the U.S. were also blocked.
Maikel Moreno and seven members of the
Venezuelan Supreme Justice Tribunal (TSJ) were sanctioned in May for usurping the functions of the
Venezuelan National Assembly and permitting Maduro to govern by decree. In July, thirteen senior officials of the Venezuelan government associated with the
2017 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly elections were sanctioned for what the U.S. labeled as their role in undermining democracy and human rights. Those sanctioned included
Tibisay Lucena, President of the Maduro-controlled
National Electoral Council (CNE);
Néstor Reverol, Minister of Interior and former Commander General of
Venezuelan National Guard (GNB); and
Tarek William Saab, Ombudsman and President of Moral Council. The U.S. State Department condemned that election and refused to recognize it. The day after the election, the U.S. sanctioned Maduro. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned eight officials associated with the
2017 Constituent National Assembly (ANC) in August, including
Adán Chávez, the brother of
Hugo Chávez.
2018 The U.S. Treasury Department said on 5 January 2018 that corruption and repression continued in Venezuela and four senior military officers were sanctioned, followed by four more in March. Just before the May
2018 Venezuelan presidential election, the U.S. sanctioned four Venezuelans and three companies it said were involved in corruption and money laundering including
Diosdado Cabello,
Chavismo's number two person and President of the ANC, The U.S. Treasury Department seized a private jet and imposed sanctions on Maduro's inner circle in September. Maduro's wife,
Cilia Flores, Defense Minister
Vladimir Padrino López, Vice President
Delcy Rodríguez, and her brother
Jorge Rodríguez, Minister of Communications, were sanctioned.
2019 On 8 January, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned seven individuals who they said were benefitting from a corrupt currency exchange scheme, and the Venezuelan private TV network
Globovisión and other companies owned or controlled by
Raúl Gorrín and Gustavo Perdomo. On 15 February 2019, officials of Maduro's security and intelligence were sanctioned along with , the head of
PDVSA. in 2023 During the February
2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, four Venezuelan state governors were added to the sanctions list. In March, six more military and security forces individuals who the U.S. alleged helped obstruct the delivery of humanitarian aid were blacklisted, followed by the president of Minerven, Venezuela's state-run mining company, Adrian Antonio Perdomo. The U.S. Treasury added sanctions on 17 April to the
Central Bank of Venezuela and one of its directors,
Iliana Ruzza, Maduro said the sanctions were "totally illegal". On 26 April 2019, the U.S. Treasury accused Maduro's foreign minister
Jorge Arreaza and Judge
Carol Padilla of exploiting the U.S. financial system to support Maduro, and blacklisted them. Following the
Venezuelan uprising on 30 April 2019, the U.S. removed sanctions against former SEBIN chief
Manuel Cristopher Figuera, who broke ranks with Maduro. The U.S. sanctioned two former Venezuelan government officials,
Luis Alfredo Motta Domínguez and Eustiquio Jose Lugo Gomez, on 27 June alleging they were engaging in significant corruption and fraud. President Maduro's son,
Nicolás Maduro Guerra, was sanctioned on 28 June 2019 as a member of
Venezuela's Constituent Assembly. Following the June death while in custody of Venezuelan navy captain
Rafael Acosta Arévalo, the U.S. sanctioned
Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar (DGCIM) and officials, accusing the defense agency of being responsible for his death. Five politicians and security officials, who had earlier been sanctioned by the E.U. or Canada, were added to the U.S. sanctions list on 5 November 2019 for alleged corruption and violence during
opposition protests.
2020 , sanctioned by Canada, the European Union, Switzerland and the United States The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned seven individuals for their involvement in the disputed January
2020 Venezuelan National Assembly Delegated Committee election that resulted in two claims for the Presidency of the National Assembly: one by legislator
Luis Parra, later supported by Maduro, and one by the incumbent
Juan Guaidó. Parra was sanctioned along with
Franklyn Duarte,
José Brito and others. OFAC sanctioned the president and board chairman,
Didier Casimiro, of
Rosneft on 18 February, for supporting Maduro's government by operating in the oil sector. On 26 March 2020, the U.S. State Department offered a $15 million reward on Nicolás Maduro (increased to $25 million in 2025 Carvajal pled guilty to all charges in a U.S. court in 2025. Two friends of Maduro and his son, Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerra, were sanctioned on 23 July for their alleged role in an illicit gold scheme. On 22 September, the U.S. Treasury described five sanctioned individuals as supporting, manipulating and rigging the upcoming
2020 Venezuelan parliamentary elections. The company Ex-Cle Soluciones Biometricas CA, and individuals associated with it, were sanctioned on 18 December for providing services for that election.
2024 and
Edmundo González Urrutia along with his wife in July after the
2024 Venezuelan presidential election Following the declaration without evidence by Venezuela's
National Electoral Council (CNE) and validation by the
Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) that Maduro had won the
28 July 2024 presidential election, condemned as fraudulent, the U.S. began reviewing a list of 60 individuals and their family members for possible sanctions. On 12 September 16 individuals associated with Maduro and the
subsequent repression were sanctioned. Among the sanctioned were five members of the TSJ, the lower-court judge who issued a warrant for the arrest of opposition candidate
Edmundo González, the CNE, and "military and intelligence officials accused of post-election repression". along with Edward Miguel Briceño Cisneros and Luis Ernesto Dueñez Reyes, the judge and prosecutor responsible for the arrest warrant against González In an environment of
repression that followed the election, 21 additional senior officials of the Maduro government were sanctioned by the U.S. on 27 November 2024.
2025 Following the disputed July
2024 Venezuelan presidential election, Maduro was inaugurated for a third term as president on 10 January 2025; that day, the U.S., E.U., U.K. and Canada placed new sanctions on Venezuelan individuals. The U.S. also increased the reward for Maduro's arrest to $25 million. In December, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned additional individuals and companies, including model and actress , accusing them of engaging in money laundering for Tren de Aragua. , after their 2015 arrest by the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration The day after the 10 December
seizure of oil tanker Skipper by the U.S. off the coast of Venezuela, additional sanctions targeting Maduro's family and oil shipments by six vessels and associated companies were imposed. According to the
Miami Herald, the sanctions aim to reverse
loosening of sanctions under the Biden administration, which
failed to help achieve a fair presidential election in 2024, and to "disrupt what the [U.S. Treasury] described as a persistent web of corruption, narcotrafficking and sanctions evasions". Ramon Carretero Napolitano, a Panamanian businessman who the U.S. alleges has profited from oil ventures with relatives of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, was also sanctioned. Jose Jesus Urdaneta Gonzalez and Empresa Aeronautica Nacional SA were sanctioned on 30 December for trade with Iran of drones. Four Chinese-based tankers, and their owner/operators, were sanctioned on 31 December.
Scope of sanctions On individuals As of 7 August 2023, the
Congressional Research Service said the U.S. maintained sanctions on more than 110 individuals. The White House saw the measures as a way to "protect the United States financial system from complicity in Venezuela's corruption and in the impoverishment of the Venezuelan people" without disallowing humanitarian aid The U.S. imposed additional sanctions on
PDVSA on 28 January 2019 to pressure Maduro to resign during the
2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. The sanctions prevented PDVSA from being paid for petroleum exports to the U.S., froze $7 billion of PDVSA's U.S. assets and prevented U.S. firms from exporting
naphtha to Venezuela. Bolton estimated the expected loss to the Venezuelan economy at more than $11 billion in 2019. In February 2019, Maduro ordered PDVSA to move its European office to Moscow to protect its overseas assets from U.S. sanctions. Exports of Venezuela's heavy crude oil depend on diluents that were imported from the U.S. before sanctions; Rosneft chartered a ship to load thinners from Malta and deliver them to Venezuela on 22 March, and arranged for Venezuelan crude oil to be processed in India. Other companies including India's
Reliance Industries Limited, Spain's
Repsol, and commodity trading companies
Trafigura and
Vitol continued to supply Venezuela's oil industry. On 18 February 2020, OFAC sanctioned Rosneft Trading S.A. for supporting Maduro's government by operating in the oil sector, and added a Swiss subsidiary of Rosneft, TNK Trading International S.A., on 12 March. Reuters reported on 18 April 2019 that the Maduro administration was bypassing sanctions by funneling cash from petroleum sales through Russia's Rosneft. Reliance denied reports that it was in violation of U.S. sanctions and stated that its purchases of Venezuelan oil through Rosneft were approved by the U.S. State Department. April oil exports were steady at a million barrels daily, "partially due to inventory drains", with most shipments to buyers from India and China. With sanctions, shipments to Cuba were unchanged. followed by nine more ships and four more shipping companies on 12 April. In response to the arrest of National Assembly members, the U.S. sanctioned on 10 May 2019 two shipping companies and two ships that transported oil from Venezuela to Cuba between late 2018 and March 2019. Sanctions on some shipping companies were lifted later in 2019.
Petrocaribe Through
Petrocaribe, a regional oil procurement agreement between Venezuela and Caribbean member states, Caribbean countries could finance some of their Venezuelan crude oil purchases at 1% interest and Cuba received free oil in exchange for medical services. Research by the journalism group
Connectas said that Petrocaribe countries were intended to protect Venezuela's sovereignty in international organizations like the UN and OAS. Several leaders of Caribbean countries supporting Maduro criticized the US sanctions, saying their support for Maduro was based on principles, not oil, and that sanctions were affecting their countries' supply, debt payments, and the region's stability. Trump promised more investment to the countries supporting Guaidó (Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Saint Lucia).
Gold Venezuela's third-largest export (after crude oil and refined petroleum products) in 2019 was gold. In mid-February 2019, National Assembly legislator Angel Alvarado said that about eight
tons of gold had been taken from the vault while the head of the Central Bank was abroad. In March, Ugandan investigators reported that 7.4
tonnes of gold worth over US$300 million could have been smuggled into that country. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Minerven, Venezuela's state-run mining company, in March 2019. Between 2013 and 2016, Venezuela shipped US$5.2 billion worth of gold to Switzerland, which froze the assets of Maduro and 35 people close to him in January 2026. On 11 March 2019, the U.S. sanctioned the Russian bank
Evrofinance Mosnarbank, stating that the Moscow-based bank was an economic lifeline for Maduro's administration. After the detention of Guaidó's chief of staff,
Roberto Marrero, in March 2019, the US Treasury Department responded by placing sanctions on the Venezuelan bank
BANDES and its subsidiaries.
China Development Bank had paid billions of dollars through BANDES to the Venezuelan government in exchange for crude oil as of March 2019; the sanctions would make it difficult for Venezuela to restructure its US$20 billion debt with China. The U.S. Treasury added sanctions to the
Central Bank of Venezuela on 17 April 2019. The Venezuelan banking sanctions caused a ripple effect in that the
New York Federal Reserve decided to restrict opening of new accounts in Puerto Rico's offshore banking industry, and planned tighter restrictions in that area.
CLAP food subsidy program , with the supplier receiving government funds owned by President Maduro On 25 July 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 13 companies involved in a Venezuelan food subsidy program called
CLAP, along with 10 people including Maduro's stepsons and Colombian businessman
Alex Saab. In 2017, the Venezuelan attorney general,
Luisa Ortega Díaz, had named Saab as the owner of a Mexican firm that sold food to the CLAP. According to Mnuchin, corruption in the "CLAP program has allowed Maduro and his family members to steal from the Venezuelan people" by using "food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents". Saab and another Colombian businessman were charged in the U.S. with money laundering related to a 2011–2015 scheme to pay bribes to take advantage of Venezuela's government-set exchange rate. U.S. Treasury Department officials had stated in April 2018 that Venezuelan officials pocketed 70% of the proceeds allocated for importation programs destined to alleviate hunger in Venezuela. An April 2019 communication from the U.S. State Department highlighted the 2017
National Assembly investigation finding that the government paid US$42 for food boxes that cost under US$13, and that "Maduro's inner circle kept the difference, which totaled more than $200 million dollars in at least one case", adding that food boxes were "distributed in exchange for votes". On 17 September 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department expanded further sanctions on 16 entities and 3 individuals, accusing them of helping the Venezuelan government profit from food import and distribution.
Airline and aircraft The U.S. sanctioned 15
PDVSA aircraft on 21 January 2020, stating that they had "been involved in the harassment of U.S. military flights in Caribbean airspace", and had been used to provide transport to sanctioned individuals. Venezuela's state airline
Conviasa (Consorcio Venezolano de Industrias Aeronáuticas y Servicios Aéreos) was blocked under Executive Order 13884 of 5 August 2019 that applied generally to property of the Government of Venezuela, but OFAC explicitly identified it and its fleet of 40 aircraft on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list on 7 February 2020 to assure compliance. The Biden Administration began relaxing sanctions on Conviasa in October 2023 under General License 45 for the purpose of deporting Venezuelan nationals from the U.S. General License 45A, issued in November 2023, further eased restrictions on Conviasa, allowing for maintenance of certain
Embraer aircraft and was replaced by General License 45B on 29 February 2024, to allow for Venezuelans from non-U.S. jurisdictions to be repatriated. In November 2023, the U.S.
Bureau of Industry and Security named three companies that it said had circumvented sanctions by smuggling U.S. aviation parts to Venezuela. On 2 September 2024, the U.S. seized Maduro's presidential airplane.
Sanctions relief First sanctions relief (2022–2024) , head of CNE, Venezuelan's electoral body, and former Comptroller General, sanctioned by Canada, the European Union, Panama, Switzerland and the United States After
Joe Biden took office, in 2022 his administration lowered some of the restrictions in the petroleum sector and allowed
Chevron Corporation, which had existing investments in Venezuela, to increase production for sales to the U.S. Crude oil exports by July 2023, driven by Chevron and other new agreements allowed under sanctions, rose to their highest level in over three years. Countries
like Cuba, China and Iran continued trading with Venezuela, and China become the main source of Venezuela's petroleum revenue in 2023. U.S. Secretary of State
Antony Blinken stated Maduro would have another month to remove bans on candidates for the
2024 presidential election. On 17 April 2024, the U.S. announced that some of these sanctions would be reinstated because the Barbados Agreement had not been fully honored and the leading opposition candidate
María Corina Machado had not been allowed to run in presidential elections. Waivers to operate in spite of the sanctions were extended to companies with existing oil and gas assets and production in Venezuela; in addition to Chevron, these included Spain's
Repsol, Italy's
Eni, France's
Maurel & Prom, After sanctions relief, Spain's 2024 imports through July of Venezuelan petroleum tripled from those of the same period in 2023. == Canada ==