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Two American citizens filed a lawsuit against Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro at a Miami federal court accusing the dictator of leading a vast “criminal enterprise” and using unjustly imprisoned Americans as bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S., the Associated Press (AP) reported on Monday.

The two American nationals, identified as former U.S. Marine corporal Matthew Heath and Osman Khan, allege in the lawsuit that Maduro regime officials unjustly detained and subjected them to acts of torture such as “waterboarding, electrocution, threats of rape with a nightstick,” and “mind-altering medications.” The two men also accused the Maduro regime of forcing them into El Tigrito (“The Little Tiger”), a small punishment cell that the Associated Press noted that International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors are investigating.

Both Heath and Khan are seeking damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a “little-used federal law” that allows U.S. citizens victims of foreign terror groups to seize the assets of their victimizers.

“The kidnapping, torture and ransoming of American citizens was part of a continuous and systematic scheme to coerce the United States government into policy concessions, the end of an oil embargo, and prisoner swaps,” the complaint reportedly read.

The AP explained in its report that the two U.S. nationals were part of the group of seven unjustly detained citizens that the Maduro regime released in 2022 in exchange for Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, Maduro’s convicted drug-trafficking nephews commonly known as the narcosobrinos (“narco-nephews”). The narcosobrinos were released by the administration of outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden as part of a prisoner swap deal with Maduro.

Heath, a former U.S. Marine corporal from Tennessee, spent 752 days unjustly imprisoned by the Maduro regime. The AP detailed in its report that Heath was detained in 2020 at a roadblock in Venezuela and charged with “terrorism” after police allegedly found weapons and a satellite phone in his possession. Maduro accused Heath at the time of allegedly surveilling oil refineries as a spy for President-elect Donald Trump during his first term.

According to the complaint, the AP explained, Heath’s family stated that the former U.S. Marine was stranded in Colombia when the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic shut down air travel. As a result, Heath crossed the “border into Venezuela in the hope of taking a short boat ride to Aruba, where a trawler he fixed up to start a chartering business was docked.”

Khan, who spent 259 days as a Venezuelan regime hostage, was detained in January 2022 while crossing the border with his girlfriend, identified as a Venezuelan national, and the girlfriend’s father. Maduro regime authorities charged Khan with “terrorism” and “human trafficking.” Khan reportedly “fell in love” with the Venezuelan national when he was working in Colombia after graduating from college in Florida.

In addition to dictator Nicolás Maduro, the complaint reportedly lists 17 other members of the Venezuelan socialist regime as defendants, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, Attorney General Tarek William Saab, and Interior Minister — and long-suspected drug lord — Diosdado Cabello, as well as state-run oil and gold-mining companies.

In their lawsuit, Heath and Khan also accused Maduro of controlling the “Cartel of the Suns,” an intercontinental cocaine trafficking operation run by high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military and by some leading figures of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). U.S. authorities have long accused the Cartel of the Suns of attempting to “flood” the United States with cocaine with the intention of harming its people.

Indictment documents from a U.S. federal court unsealed in July revealed that Maduro, while having not been a leading figure of the cartel at the time of its creation, has become more directly involved in its operations, and has come to lead the entire organization.

The AP explained in its report that other Americans who have been unjustly imprisoned in Venezuela have won major judgments against Maduro and his socialist regime on similar legal grounds. It observed that collecting the rewards has proven “daunting,” as neither Maduro nor any of his close aides are known to have properties or bank accounts in the U.S. under their name — and “whatever wealth officials have stolen is more likely to be held by a myriad of front men whose assets are hard to trace and seize.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.