By Jan Wolfe, Reuters
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Prisons arrive at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, where ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is being held on January 5, 2026. Photo: AFP / KENA BETANCUR
Days after being captured in a Caracas safe house, ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro finds himself in a far less hospitable environment: a Brooklyn jail where he likely will be confined to a cell 23 hours a day, conditions that Sean "Diddy" Combs and Ghislaine Maxwell had called inhumane.
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores face drug trafficking charges in the United States after being captured in a dramatic overnight raid.
They were transported to a US Navy ship, flown to the US and taken Saturday night to the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn. Both the 63-year old Maduro and his 69-year old wife appeared in Manhattan federal court on Monday (local time).
Founded in 1994, MDC Brooklyn holds roughly 1300 men and women and is currently the only jail for detainees awaiting federal trials in New York City.
Past residents have included everyone from Maxwell and hip-hop mogul Combs to Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras who was convicted of drug trafficking charges before being pardoned in December by President Donald Trump.
Luigi Mangione, who pleaded not guilty to killing a UnitedHealth Group executive, is currently housed there awaiting trial.
The jail has been plagued by what inmates and defence lawyers have said are inhumane and unsanitary conditions.
In 2019, some detainees at MDC Brooklyn were left in frigid cells after an electrical fire cut power and heat to the jail in the middle of winter.
In 2024, two men were murdered by fellow inmates using makeshift weapons, according to the Justice Department, prompting a crackdown on violence and contraband smuggling at the facility.
Maxwell, who was housed in MDC Brooklyn before her 2021 conviction for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls, complained of raw sewage and vermin faeces in her cell.
The US Bureau of Prisons, the division of the Justice Department that operates MDC Brooklyn, did not respond to a request for comment. But the agency said in a September 2025 report that the jail's conditions have improved because of increased staffing and other reforms.
Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor who now practices criminal defence, said all prisoners at MDC Brooklyn face some risk of violence from other inmates. That risk is higher with someone like Maduro who could be targeted by a gang or a prisoner wanting to build a reputation through a "lone-wolf attack," Epner said.
Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents as they make their way into an armoured car en route to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on January 5, 2026 in New York City. Photo: XNY/Star Max
Maduro likely to remain separate from inmates
Cameron Lindsay, a former MDC Brooklyn warden who has served as an expert witness, said the Bureau of Prisons will likely keep Maduro separated from other inmates and carefully vet the staff who interact with him.
"It's conjecture on my part, but I would expect him to be put in a cell on a floor by himself," Lindsay said. "This is obviously a super sensitive, high-security operation."
Lindsay said Maduro will likely be locked down 23 hours a day, with meals delivered to his cell and one hour allotted for exercise in a small caged area. He likely will have access to a shower three times a week, Lindsay added.
The former warden said Maduro's wife likely would receive the same treatment.
Combs, convicted in July on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, slept within two feet of other inmates in a dorm-style room during his time at MDC Brooklyn. The bathroom, with no door, was located in the same room.
At one point during Combs's incarceration, guards stopped someone trying to cut him with a makeshift knife, his lawyers said.
There have been some signs of improving conditions at MDC Brooklyn in the last two years.
In 2024, Manhattan-based US District Judge Jesse Furman declined to order a man charged with drug crimes detained pending trial at the MDC, calling the conditions there an "ongoing tragedy".
But in hearing in a different case in May 2025, Furman said conditions had gotten "a lot better" since his 2024 ruling because of improved staffing.
In its September report, the Bureau of Prisons said "there has been a substantial decrease in violence" at MDC Brooklyn, and that the number of inmates dropped from about 1600 to roughly 1300.
The same month it issued those statistics, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against 25 people relating to violence and contraband smuggling at MDC Brooklyn.
In one case, a former correctional officer was accused of smuggling in vacuum‑sealed bags of marijuana and cigarettes under his Bureau of Prisons-issued protective vest.
In a different case, an alleged gang member was accused of hiding ceramic scalpels, which can be used as weapons, in a bag of Doritos while in a visiting room at MDC Brooklyn so that he could give them to inmates.
- Reuters
