Venezuela’s deposed leader Nicolas Maduro was due to appear in a New York court on Monday to face a raft of U.S. federal charges, including narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering. His court appearance follows a dramatic U.S. Special Forces operation over the weekend that captured him in Caracas, marking Washington’s most significant intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.

Video footage aired by U.S. media showed a heavily guarded convoy transporting Maduro from Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse in Manhattan. As the legal process began, the United Nations moved to examine the legality of President Donald Trump’s decision to authorize the operation.

Back in Caracas, senior officials from Maduro’s long-ruling government initially reacted with defiance before shifting their stance. Acting president Delcy Rodriguez, who first condemned the capture as an oil-driven “kidnapping,” later signaled openness to respectful relations with Washington, even as U.S. leaders reiterated their interest in Venezuela’s vast but struggling oil sector.