Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro Is in the Same Brooklyn Jail as Luigi Mangione: Inside the Notorious and Dangerous MDC By Liam Quinn

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is in custody at a Brooklyn jail known for housing high-profile inmates, including Luigi Mangione.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by U.S. forces from their home in Caracas, Venezuela and brought to New York to face federal drug trafficking and weapons charges.

Maduro is currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in the Southern District of New York on Monday, Jan. 5.

MDC is a notorious federal facility that has drawn complaints after allegations of poor conditions.

In a June statement, the Legal Aid Society claimed MDC has a “documented history of violence, medical neglect, and human and civil rights violations.”

The organization cited reports from clients of having “been served maggot-infested food, denied adequate medical care — including botched cancer diagnoses — and suffered fatal violence due to chronic understaffing.”

Before his high-profile trial, Sean “Diddy” Combs was detained at MDC before he was eventually transferred to a New Jersey prison to serve out his sentence.

In a pre-trial letter, Combs’s lawyer told a judge that conditions in MDC were “horrific.”

But the facility has nonetheless been home to a number of notable inmates, including Mangione, who has been there since his arrest in December 2024, in connection with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Ghislaine Maxwell, known for her association with Jeffrey Epstein and currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, was previously detained at MDC before her trial in 2022.

Why Inmates Are Calling Luigi Mangione the ‘Ambassador’ at His Brooklyn Jail (Exclusive)

Here’s Where Diddy’s Attorneys Want Him to Serve His Prison Sentence

Convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried was in MDC until 2025, when he was transferred to a prison in California.

Maduro is charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Flores is charged with cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.  

Both adamantly denied their guilt at their arraignment.

“I am not guilty,” Maduro said in Spanish, via an interpreter. “I am a decent man. I am still the president of my country.” 

Maduro also referred to himself as a “prisoner of war.”