가디언 보도 번역 요약.
1. 두 사람 관계
차베스의 조언자였던 에바 골링거 (미국 변호사, 작가)는 실리아 플로리스와 마두로를 몇 차례 만난 적이 있다.
마두로의 아내 실리아 플로리스가 '두뇌'역할을 했고, 마두로는 '근육' 역할을 맡았다.
마두로를 무시하는 게 아니라, 그만큼 실리아 플로리스의 비중이 컸다.
2. 어떻게 만나게 되었는가>
실리아 플로리스와 마두로의 만남 계기, 1992년 차베스 중령이 카를로스 페레즈에 대항해 쿠데타를 시도했다가 투옥되었을 때, 실리아는 차베스 석방을 위해 변호업무를 맡았다. 당시 니콜라스 마두로는 버스 노조 위원장이었다. 그 이후 그 둘은 차비스모 Chavismo 운동에 적극 참여했다.
3. 정치 데뷔 이후 행적. 실리아 플로리스 국회의장. 판사와 검찰 임명 개입.
1999년 차베스의 집권 이후, 실리아는 2006년 여성으로서는 처음으로 국회의장이 되었다. 이 당시 자기 친척 40명을 공직에 임명했다. 이 사실이 보도되자, 실리아는 언론인들을 "용병"이라고 부르며, 의회 담당 보도를 금지시켰다.
실리아 플로리스는 "내성적이고, 부끄럼이 많고, 나직히 말하며, 우아한 외모"를 하고 있다고 골딩거는 증언. (Eva Goldinger )
그럼에도 실리아 플로리스는 억압적인 마두로 정권 하에서 "매우 영리한 정치 9단" 이었다.
마두로 정권 하에서, 재판없이 2만명이 살해당했고, 실종자가 발생했고, 고문을 당했고, 수천명이 정치범으로 감옥에 수용되었다. 마두로 정권의 부패와 경제적 실정,미국의 경제 제재로 인해, 800만명이 베네수엘라를 떠나 다른 나라로 이민갔다.
카스토 오칸도 (언론인) "실리아 플로리스는 판사와 검사 임명에 적극 개입했고, 혁명에 충성하는 사람을 고용했다"
She was the brains, Maduro was the brawn’: Cilia Flores’ role in Venezuela
Flores, Nicolás Maduro’s wife, wielded far more power than just being a first lady and played a front line role in politics
Tiago Rogero
Tiago Rogero, South America correspondent
Tue 6 Jan 2026 14.06 GMT
Before pleading “not guilty” at her first court hearing after she and her husband, Nicolás Maduro, were captured by US special forces, Cilia Flores made a point of adding, in Spanish: “I am first lady of the Republic of Venezuela.”
But Maduro himself and others close to the couple agree that she was always far more than that. Before her rendition to New York, Flores wielded power comparable with – and at times greater than – that of other figures from the regime, including Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice-president who is now the country’s acting leader.
Maduro used to say that Flores was not the first lady but the “first combatant”, reflecting the frontline role she occupied within the regime.
The two, who met in a Venezuelan prison while visiting their political mentor Hugo Chávez in the 1990s, are now being held in a New York jail and face US charges of “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking.
“Flores is Maduro’s wife, first and foremost, but really more: she’s his key partner, one of his closest confidants and, in large part, helped his rise into politics,” said Eva Golinger, a US lawyer and writer who met the couple several times while acting as an adviser to Chávez
– she would later break with him and write The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela.
“Flores was more the brains, and Maduro was more the brawn – not to downplay his abilities as a very successful political operator in his own right – but she has been his pillar of support throughout everything,” added Golinger.
When they met, Maduro was a bus driver and union leader, while Flores, six years his senior, was a lawyer who was part of the legal team seeking to free Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel, who had been jailed for his part in an attempted coup against Carlos Andrés Pérez, the president, in 1992.
실리아 플로리스와 마두로의 만남 계기, 1992년 차베스 중령이 카를로스 페레즈에 대항해 쿠데타를 시도했다가 투옥되었을 때, 실리아는 차베스 석방을 위해 변호업무를 맡았다. 당시 니콜라스 마두로는 버스 노조 위원장이었다. 그 이후 그 둘은 차비스모 Chavismo 운동에 적극 참여했다.
1999년 차베스의 집권 이후, 실리아는 2006년 여성으로서는 처음으로 국회의장이 되었다. 이 당시 자기 친척 40명을 공직에 임명했다. 이 사실이 보도되자, 실리아는 언론인들을 "용병"이라고 부르며, 의회 담당 보도를 금지시켰다.
After Chávez was released, the couple threw themselves fully into the political movement that would later become known as Chavismo.
When Chávez first came to power in 1999, they were rewarded with senior posts and steadily expanded their political influence. Maduro would later reach the highest office, but Flores was not far behind: in 2006, she became the first woman to serve as president of the national assembly, a period during which she appointed nearly 40 relatives to public posts. When confronted with the findings, she called reporters “mercenaries” and barred the press from covering congress.
After nearly two decades together, they married in 2013, shortly after Maduro was sworn in following the death of Chávez. They both have children from previous relationships, including Nicolás Maduro Guerra, known as “Nicolasito,” who has also been indicted in the US but was not captured and remains in Venezuela.
Described as “introverted, shy, very soft-spoken and with a gentle appearance” by Golinger, Flores was nonetheless a “very astute political operator” under her husband’s oppressive regime, which carried out more than 20,000 extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture, jailed thousands of political opponents, and whose corruption and economic mismanagement – compounded by US sanctions – triggered the largest humanitarian migration crisis from a country not at war, forcing about 8 million people to flee.
실리아 플로리스는 "내성적이고, 부끄럼이 많고, 나직히 말하며, 우아한 외모"를 하고 있다고 골딩거는 증언.
그럼에도 실리아 플로리스는 마두로 정권 하에서차베스의 조언자였던 에바 골링거 (미국 변호사, 작가)는 실리아 플로리스와 마두로를 몇 차례 만난 적이 있다.
마두로의 아내 실리아 플로리스가 '두뇌'역할을 했고, 마두로는 '근육' 역할을 맡았다.
마두로를 무시하는 게 아니라, 그만큼 실리아 플로리스의 비중이 컸다.
실리아 플로리스와 마두로의 만남 계기, 1992년 차베스 중령이 카를로스 페레즈에 대항해 쿠데타를 시도했다가 투옥되었을 때, 실리아는 차베스 석방을 위해 변호업무를 맡았다. 당시 니콜라스 마두로는 버스 노조 위원장이었다. 그 이후 그 둘은 차비스모 Chavismo 운동에 적극 참여했다.
1999년 차베스의 집권 이후, 실리아는 2006년 여성으로서는 처음으로 국회의장이 되었다. 이 당시 자기 친척 40명을 공직에 임명했다. 이 사실이 보도되자, 실리아는 언론인들을 "용병"이라고 부르며, 의회 담당 보도를 금지시켰다.
She was the brains, Maduro was the brawn’: Cilia Flores’ role in Venezuela
Flores, Nicolás Maduro’s wife, wielded far more power than just being a first lady and played a front line role in politics
Before pleading “not guilty” at her first court hearing after she and her husband, Nicolás Maduro, were captured by US special forces, Cilia Flores made a point of adding, in Spanish: “I am first lady of the Republic of Venezuela.”
But Maduro himself and others close to the couple agree that she was always far more than that. Before her rendition to New York, Flores wielded power comparable with – and at times greater than – that of other figures from the regime, including Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice-president who is now the country’s acting leader.
Maduro used to say that Flores was not the first lady but the “first combatant”, reflecting the frontline role she occupied within the regime.
The two, who met in a Venezuelan prison while visiting their political mentor Hugo Chávez in the 1990s, are now being held in a New York jail and face US charges of “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking.
“Flores is Maduro’s wife, first and foremost, but really more: she’s his key partner, one of his closest confidants and, in large part, helped his rise into politics,” said Eva Golinger, a US lawyer and writer who met the couple several times while acting as an adviser to Chávez
– she would later break with him and write The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela.
“Flores was more the brains, and Maduro was more the brawn – not to downplay his abilities as a very successful political operator in his own right – but she has been his pillar of support throughout everything,” added Golinger.
When they met, Maduro was a bus driver and union leader, while Flores, six years his senior, was a lawyer who was part of the legal team seeking to free Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel, who had been jailed for his part in an attempted coup against Carlos Andrés Pérez, the president, in 1992.
실리아 플로리스와 마두로의 만남 계기, 1992년 차베스 중령이 카를로스 페레즈에 대항해 쿠데타를 시도했다가 투옥되었을 때, 실리아는 차베스 석방을 위해 변호업무를 맡았다. 당시 니콜라스 마두로는 버스 노조 위원장이었다. 그 이후 그 둘은 차비스모 Chavismo 운동에 적극 참여했다.
1999년 차베스의 집권 이후, 실리아는 2006년 여성으로서는 처음으로 국회의장이 되었다. 이 당시 자기 친척 40명을 공직에 임명했다. 이 사실이 보도되자, 실리아는 언론인들을 "용병"이라고 부르며, 의회 담당 보도를 금지시켰다.
After Chávez was released, the couple threw themselves fully into the political movement that would later become known as Chavismo.
When Chávez first came to power in 1999, they were rewarded with senior posts and steadily expanded their political influence. Maduro would later reach the highest office, but Flores was not far behind: in 2006, she became the first woman to serve as president of the national assembly, a period during which she appointed nearly 40 relatives to public posts. When confronted with the findings, she called reporters “mercenaries” and barred the press from covering congress.
After nearly two decades together, they married in 2013, shortly after Maduro was sworn in following the death of Chávez. They both have children from previous relationships, including Nicolás Maduro Guerra, known as “Nicolasito,” who has also been indicted in the US but was not captured and remains in Venezuela.
Described as “introverted, shy, very soft-spoken and with a gentle appearance” by Golinger, Flores was nonetheless a “very astute political operator” under her husband’s oppressive regime, which carried out more than 20,000 extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture, jailed thousands of political opponents, and whose corruption and economic mismanagement – compounded by US sanctions – triggered the largest humanitarian migration crisis from a country not at war, forcing about 8 million people to flee.
“She may not have been the face of the government, but she certainly had all the influence behind. I believe he would consult her on everything,” she added.
As an experienced lawyer, Flores took particular control over the judiciary, said Casto Ocando, a Venezuelan investigative journalist based in the US.
“She was very actively involved in the process of appointing judges and prosecutors, a crucial area, because they replaced them to install others loyal to the revolution,” added Ocando.
카스토 오칸도 (언론인) "실리아 플로리스는 판사와 검사 임명에 적극 개입했고, 혁명에 충성하는 사람을 고용했다"
He said that while Flores was highly influential, it is difficult to say whether she ranked as a clear “No 2” – a position many instead attribute to the interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, or to the current acting president, Rodríguez.
“The regime is not homogeneous, but made up of factions that each controlled parts of power. Maduro was the president, but he did not necessarily control all power, even though the strongest faction was the one formed by him and his wife,” said Ocando.
In the indictment, US prosecutors allege that the presidential couple benefited from “large-scale drug trafficking” that filled the “pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families, while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect and transport tonnes of cocaine to the US”.
Prosecutors allege that the couple were part of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), which the US treats as a criminal organisation, but which security analysts say is not a group in itself, rather a dramatised description of how Maduro has allowed criminal networks – including senior military figures – to exploit illegal industries such as cocaine smuggling.
The document alleges that Flores accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” to broker a meeting in 2007 between a “large-scale drug trafficker” and the then head of Venezuela’s anti-narcotics agency.
According to prosecutors, the parties agreed on a monthly bribe plus $100,000 to guarantee safe passage for each cocaine flight, “a portion of which was then paid to Flores”.
The indictment also cites a 2015 episode in which two of her nephews were caught by US agents planning to ship “multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine loads” from the presidential hangar of a Venezuelan airport, allegedly with the aim of raising $20m to finance Flores’s congressional campaign at the time. Both nephews were convicted in the US in 2016.
실리아 플로리스의 2명의 조카들이, 2015년, 베네수엘라 공항의 대통령 격납고에서 수백 킬로그램 코카인을 운반하려고 했다. 미국 요원들이 2명의 조카들을 체포했고, 2016년 미국 법원에서 유죄 판결을 받은 바가 있다. 그 두 명은 실리아 플로리스의 의회 선거 운동에 필요한 돈 2천만 달러를 충당하려고 코카인을 운반하려고 했었다.
플로리스와 마두로는 이러한 혐의를 부인했다.
Flores and Maduro deny all the allegations. At Monday’s hearing, her lawyer, Mark Donnelly, said she had suffered “significant injuries” during the military operation that led to her capture and that he believed she may have a fracture or a serious back injury, requiring a complete medical examination.
“I’m sure that Maduro and Flores did not expect this,” said Golinger. “The hearing may have been the last day they ever saw each other – and I can imagine how hard that must have hit them after spending their entire lives together.”
