President Joe Biden’s administration said Venezuela freed seven detained Americans, including several U.S. oil executives, in a prisoner swap involving two members of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s family.
Biden personally made the decision to grant clemency to two Venezuelans sentenced in the U.S. on drug charges — Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, both nephews of Maduro’s wife, according to a senior administration official. Each was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2017 for conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S.
The Biden administration has prioritized efforts to bring home Americans who have been wrongly detained, the official said Saturday, adding that Biden spoke to the families of the Americans released.
