Chile National Prosecutor Ángel Valencia on Monday requested U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to interrogate Nicolás Maduro about the assassination of exiled Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda.
Valencia traveled to Washington and had a work meeting with Bondi, seeking to strengthen security cooperation between Chile and the United States as well as cooperation in the fight against organized crime. The Chilean Public Prosecutor’s Office detailed that the first topic addressed by Valencia and Bondi was the prosecution of money laundering and the protection of the two countries’ financial systems.
The second subject, Valencia said, was to continue strengthening Chile’s cooperation with the United States regarding the pursuit of Tren de Aragua (TdA) and the “Aragua Pirates,” a TdA faction operating in Chile, as well as prosecution of crimes committed by “associated gangs in our country, such as the murder of Lieutenant Ronald Ojeda.”
Ronald Ojeda, 32 at the time of his death, was a dissident Venezuelan lieutenant who escaped to Chile facing persecution from the Venezuelan socialist regime, and became a vocal critic of now-deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and other regime figures.
On February 21, 2024, a group of men pretending to be Chilean immigration officers abducted Ojeda at his residence in Santiago, dragging him out of his apartment barefoot and wearing only his underwear. Days later, on March 1, his body was found in a suitcase buried under a cement structure at a location in Santiago’s metropolitan area.
The Chilean Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately launched an investigation into the killing of the exiled Venezuelan dissident and determined that Tren de Aragua was involved in the crime. Further investigations revealed that one of the suspects in the plot to abduct and kill Ojeda was an employee in the office of the governor of the Venezuelan state of Aragua. The Venezuelan socialist regime has denied any involvement in the death of Ronald Ojeda. Leftist former President of Chile Gabriel Boric, whose term ended last week, linked the abduction and killing of Ojeda to the regime of Nicolás Maduro during an October 2025 speech.
“Without going beyond Chile, we have the case of the assassination of a former Venezuelan soldier, where one of the suspects of having perpetrated the assassination is the very regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro,” Boric said at the time, “who steals elections in his country.”
At press time, Nicolás Maduro — long wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges — remains detained at the at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn alongside his wife Cilia Flores after President Donald Trump authorized a law enforcement operation in Caracas on January 3 that resulted in the couple’s arrest.
Prosecutor Valencia noted that Attorney General Bondi and her team conveyed the willingness of the Department of Justice to continue cooperating in the investigation of the murder of Ojeda, not only by “considering the request that Nicolás Maduro testify, but also by providing all the information, background details, and evidence they gather during their ongoing investigations that could be useful in solving this horrific crime.”
“It is a very favorable, very positive response. We are very pleased with that,” Valencia said. He also explained that, since Maduro is under U.S. jurisdiction, the appropriate course of action under Chilean law is to request the U.S. authorities’ cooperation to process Chile’s request to interrogate Maduro in accordance with United States law and the terms that govern U.S.-Chile cooperation.
“The team of prosecutors, led by Regional Prosecutor Héctor Barros, and the police have already prepared a questionnaire to be sent to U.S. authorities,” Valencia said, “and Attorney General Bondi has expressed her full willingness to assist with that questioning, should it be appropriate and necessary, although this depends on Maduro’s willingness to cooperate.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
