When Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced the au­da­cious cap­ture of Nicolás Maduro to face drug traf­fick­ing charges in the U.S., he por­trayed the strong­man’s vice pres­i­dent and long­time aide as Amer­i­ca’s pre­ferred part­ner to sta­bi­lize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, cor­rup­tion and eco­nom­ic may­hem.

Left un­spo­ken was the cloud of sus­pi­cion that long sur­round­ed Del­cy Ro­dríguez be­fore she be­came act­ing pres­i­dent of the be­lea­guered na­tion ear­li­er this month.

In fact, Ro­dríguez has been on the radar of the U.S. Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion for years and in 2022 was even la­beled a “pri­or­i­ty tar­get,” a des­ig­na­tion DEA re­serves for sus­pects be­lieved to have a “sig­nif­i­cant im­pact” on the drug trade, ac­cord­ing to records ob­tained by The As­so­ci­at­ed Press and more than a half dozen cur­rent and for­mer U.S. law en­force­ment of­fi­cials.