Nicolas Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, often portrayed herself as a champion of the people, fitting the image expected of a partner to a so-called socialist leader in Latin America.
Favoring the title “First Combatant” over “First Lady,” she frequently reminisced about her modest upbringing in a simple mud-brick home.
Her journey from those humble beginnings has been dramatic. Critics attribute her and her husband’s unexplained riches to drug money, which has allegedly helped them build an impressive collection of properties, luxury cars, and designer clothing that could rival the legendary shoe collection of Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines.
Last year, the U.S. government reported seizing $700 million worth of assets linked to the Maduros. The collection included several luxury properties in Florida, a mansion in the Dominican Republic, two private jets, nine vehicles, and an astonishing seven tons of cocaine.
In Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Flores and Maduro are believed to own an entire street of luxury homes. In a nation where the average monthly income is around £160, Flores has been spotted wearing high-end fashion from brands like Dior, Stella McCartney, and Dolce & Gabbana, including a Dior jacket with a price tag of £3,400.
However, Flores presented a starkly different image when she appeared in a New York court this week.
Her slight frame hunched against the January chill, nursing a broken rib and with her face bandaged and showing signs of the bruises she reportedly sustained while resisting arrest, she looked a world away from the sleek, bespectacled mother of three who was often at her husband’s side as he addressed rallies or hosted interminable state dinners.
At first glance, it might have seemed a puzzling decision by the US government to have their Delta Force commandos scoop her up along with her husband during their weekend raid on Caracas. However, while Nicolas is exactly the intimidating thug he appears to be, his wife is deceptively inoffensive.
Cilia Flores pictured, second left, arriving with husband Nicolas Maduro, second right, as they are transported to appear in a New York court on Monday
As befits the partner of a supposedly socialist Latin American dictator, Maduro’s wife, pictured last January, liked to depict herself as a woman of the people
Given grim nicknames such as The Scarlet Witch and Lady Macbeth by her luckless subjects, the 69-year-old was the widely feared power behind the throne in the brutal Maduro regime. Her husband – six years her junior – may have provided the brawn during their 30-year partnership but the devoted spouse he calls Cilita provided the brains.
A former Venezuelan intelligence chief described her as ‘behind the curtain, pulling the strings’, placing key allies – including at least 40 family members – into key government roles.
So it’s entirely fitting, say prosecutors, that she now joins him in the dock – charged with offences ranging from narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation conspiracy, to possession of machine guns and destructive devices. Asked how she pleaded to the various counts, Flores responded: ‘Not guilty – completely innocent.’
Her accusers beg to differ. They say that she exercised effective control of Venezuela’s decrepit legal system, packing it with loyal judges as she took vast bribes from drug cartels to allow safe passage to their planes and ships loaded with cocaine.
US prosecutors claim that for more than a decade she and her husband trafficked cocaine and ‘ordered kidnappings, beatings and murders’ of those who opposed them or owed them drug money.
‘She is a fundamental figure in corruption in Venezuela and especially in the structure of power,’ said former Venezuelan prosecutor Zair Mundaray.
‘Many people consider her far more astute and shrewd than Maduro himself.’
Although Flores raised no complaint when described by prosecutors as Venezuela’s ‘de facto First Lady’, her preferrred title of First Combatant, better suited her public image as the self-sacrificing champion of the people.
She and her husband amassed a huge property portfolio and a wardrobe that would be the envy of the Queen Of Soles herself, Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, pictured, who was reputed to have owned 3,000 pairs of shoes
In reality, she was as corrupt and hypocritical as her husband, living a life of astonishing luxury even as many Venezuelans – impoverished and oppressed by their incompetent and kleptocratic rule – struggled to feed themselves.
A shameless nepotist, she enriched dozens of family members and allies by awarding them plum government jobs, while her sons and two notorious nephews – jailed in the US for a huge 2015 cocaine smuggling operation – enjoyed a playboy lifestyle.
A former bodyguard said she would have known of the nephews’ drugs ring involving 800kg of cocaine as ‘Cilia knew everything’.
Asked about the nepotism allegations in 2013, Flores responded: ‘My family got in based on their own merits… I am proud of them and I will defend their work as many times as necessary.’
Born into a working class family, Flores married her high school sweetheart Walter Gavidia and had three children while working her way up to serve as a top legal adviser to the ruling party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), founded by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
She first attracted national attention in 1994 when she secured Chavez’s release from prison after he had staged two failed coup attempts.
She met Maduro, then a trade union leader, in the early 1990s and, despite both being married with children, they began a relationship that finally led to marriage in 2013, the year Maduro took power.
She claims – most unconvincingly, given his rambling, inarticulate manner – she was initially attracted to his intelligence.
Maduro and Flores pictured at an inauguration ceremony in 2018. She preferred the revolutionary moniker First Combatant to First Lady
In 2006, she became the first woman to serve as President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, swiftly banning journalists from the chamber. She also went to great lengths over the years to soften her husband’s hard-edged reputation and play down the regime’s corruption.
After Maduro became President, she starred in her own cheesy TV show, With Cilia In The Family, which played up her family values and simple lifestyle, making homely national dishes in a basic kitchen that clearly wasn’t hers.
The couple also frequently indulged their passion for salsa, dancing for the benefit of Venezuelan TV viewers.
Despite her posturing as an ordinary housewife, the truth occasionally slipped out. In 2018, while Venezuela was suffering hyperinflation, mass protests and severe food shortages, Mr and Mrs Maduro were filmed eating in the ultra-expensive Istanbul restaurant of celebrity chef Salt Bae, who became a global social media sensation for his £1,450 steaks covered in gold leaf.
As US interrogators ponder how to break Maduro who, like Flores, has denied the charges against him, perhaps his adoration of his wife might provide a key.
He exploded in fury in 2019 when she became one of the members of his inner circle to be sanctioned by the US.
‘You don’t mess with Cilia,’ he roared. ‘Don’t be cowards! Her only crime [is] being my wife.’
It will be left to a New York court to decide just how true or false that claim is.
