This is the Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal prison in the Brooklyn district where Maduro is being held
The Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, is in one of the most well-known federal prisons in the United States, where he will await trial.
Blindfolded and handcuffed, Nicolás Maduro arrived in New York and was swiftly transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center, located in the heart of Brooklyn and widely known as a true “hell”.
He will remain there at least until Monday, when he is due to appear in court. Former inmates describe the prison as an extremely noisy place. The sound of metal doors slamming shut, prisoners shouting through the ventilation ducts, and the constant echo of concrete walls create an environment of intense psychological stress.
Inmates have filed numerous complaints about prolonged confinement and poor conditions. Since 2021, at least four prisoners have committed suicide at the facility. In June 2024, a 37-year-old inmate was stabbed to death, and a month later another prisoner died after being injured in a fight.
Operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and historically used to detain high-profile inmates, the facility currently holds figures such as R. Kelly and Sean “Diddy” Combs. It is also where former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was previously detained, before receiving a pardon from Trump in December.
The same prison once held Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the notorious Mexican drug trafficker, between his extradition to the United States and his transfer to the ADX Florence maximum-security prison in Colorado.
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“He wakes up on a steel bed with a 3.8 cm mattress, without a pillow, in a 0.9 by 1.5 metre cell that, I assure you, is disgusting,” said Michael Cohen, a former Trump adviser who also served time in federal prison.
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