The Venezuelan authorities said on Thursday that they were seeking the arrest of Juan Guaidó, the former opposition leader who is in exile in the United States.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Venezuela’s Public Ministry had requested a warrant for Mr. Guaidó’s arrest. He said Mr. Guaidó had used the resources of the state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, for his own benefit, claiming that his actions had cost the Venezuelan government $19 billion.
Mr. Guaidó denied the accusations on social media, saying that “this is how the dictatorship’s machine for promoting lies works.”
Mr. Guaidó became the face of the resistance to Venezuela’s authoritarian government during large-scale protests in 2019, when he took the helm of the legislature, declared President Nicolás Maduro an illegitimate ruler and appointed himself the country’s interim leader, a bold move backed by the United States and dozens of other nations.
But as he failed to make progress toward dislodging Mr. Maduro, his support waned at home and overseas. Last year, his colleagues in the opposition dissolved his interim government.
The Public Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that prosecutors had been appointed to issue the warrant for Mr. Guaidó’s arrest, and that the government would ask Interpol to issue a “red notice” to governments worldwide asking that he be detained.
