VENEZUELA’S Putin-loving dictator has cast a dark shadow over his country for over a decade as he plunged it further into turmoil.

Nicolás Maduro, 61, a bus driver-turned-kingpin president now looks poised to invade his neighbour in an oil-driven land grab.

The stern-faced 6ft3in socialist has ruled over the failing South American country that sits in America’s backyard for over a decade. Clinging onto power through a series of rigged elections and assassination attempts, Maduro has driven his country into greater economic devastation and political instability. The UN predicts that the 61-year-old’s brutal and repressive regime, propped up by the military, has led to 20,000 extrajudicial killings and forced quarter of its population to flee the country.

Fears are growing that Maduro’s next move is to snatch two-thirds of neighbouring Guyana after years of trumpeting a claim over the region since the discovery of offshore oil and gas.

Opposition leader Julio Borges, who fled Venezuela for fear of arrest, tweeted: “While Venezuelans suffer and die of hunger, Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores have a good time in one of the most expensive restaurants in the world, all with money stolen from the Venezuelan people.”

PUTIN COMRADE

A friendship seemingly forged in the flow of oil, Venezuela sits on top of the world’s largest oil reserve and Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter. The pair of callous dictators have deepened their cooperation in recent years as Putin has sought to invest more in the South American country. Russia describes Venezuela as a key Russian partner in Latin America and says it is deepening ties with other powers after the West slapped sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.

CARACAS KINGPIN

In 2020, the US charged Maduro and his cronies with narco terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and a whole host of other criminal charges. It landed Maduro with a $15million (£12.5 million) bounty planted on his head by The Trump Administration. Other sordid officials charged included the country’s defence minister and the supreme court chief justice. Two of Maduro’s wife’s nephews had previously been arrested for drug trafficking in 2015 in Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince. Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas were caught attempting to smuggle 800kg of cocaine into the US with the cash allegedly destined to help their family stay in power.