The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday charged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and 14 current and former officials with money laundering and other charges in an alleged narco-terrorism conspiracy to “flood” the United States with cocaine.

In a livestreamed press conference, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said that Maduro, and other political and military leaders across the Venezuelan government, had worked with a dissident group of rebel fighters to provide safe passage through its airspace in order to move between 200 and 250 metric tons of the drug to locations in North America.