Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans in the months since Donald Trump's administration began a military and economic pressure campaign against the South American nation's government, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

Some of those detained face legitimate criminal charges, but the U.S. government is considering designating two others as illegally detained, the U.S. official said. Among those detained are three Venezuelan-Americans with dual passports, as well as two U.S. citizens with no known ties to the country, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has long used detained Americans, whether guilty of serious crimes or innocent, as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington, his biggest adversary.

President Trump has made the Making the release of Americans detained abroad a priority in both of his presidencies, and he sent his envoy, Richard Grenell, to Venezuela to negotiate a prisoner deal days into his second term.

The subsequent period of talks between U.S. and Venezuelan officials led to the release of 17 U.S. citizens and permanent residents detained in Venezuela.

However, the Trump administration's decision to suspend those talks and begin a military and economic pressure campaign against Maduro ended the release. of prisoners. The number of Americans detained in Venezuela began to rise again in the fall, according to the U.S. official. This increase coincided with the deployment of a US naval fleet in the Caribbean and the beginning of air attacks against ships that, according to Washington, transport drugs on orders of Maduro.

The United States further intensified its pressure campaign this month, targeting ships carrying Venezuelan oil and paralyzing the country's largest source of exports.

The US embassy in Colombia, which handles Venezuelan affairs, declined to comment on American detainees in Venezuela, and referred questions to the U.S. State Department.

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Venezuela's Communications Ministry, which handles government press requests, did not respond to a request for comment.

The identity of most of the Americans detained in Venezuela in recent months is unknown.

The family of a traveler named James Luckey-Lange, of Staten Island, in New York, reported him missing shortly after he crossed Venezuela's volatile southern border in early December.

The U.S. official said Luckey-Lange, 28, is among those recently detained, and is one of two Americans who could be designated as wrongfully detained prisoners.

Luckey-Lange is the son of musician Diane Luckey, who performed as Q Lazzarus and is known for her hit single 1988 “Goodbye Horses.” A travel enthusiast and amateur martial arts fighter, Luckey-Lange worked in commercial fishing in Alaska after graduating from college, friends and family say.

After the death of her mother, she undertook a long journey through Latin America in 2022. Her father died this year.

“She has been traveling from one place to another, thinking about what to do with her life,” Eva said. Aridjis Fuentes, a filmmaker who worked with Luckey-Lange on a documentary about Q Lazzarus. “He has suffered many losses.”

Luckey-Lange wrote on his blog in early December that he was conducting research into gold mining in the Amazon region of Guyana, which borders Venezuela. On December 7, he wrote to a friend who was in an unspecified location in Venezuela, and the next day he spoke for the last time with his family. She said she was headed to Caracas, where she was scheduled to take a flight on Dec. 12 to go home to New York.

It is unclear whether Luckey-Lange had a visa to enter Venezuela, as the country's law requires of U.S. citizens.

Her aunt and closest relative, Abbie Luckey, said in a telephone interview that U.S. authorities have not contacted her and that she is seeking any information about her whereabouts.

Some U.S. citizens released from prison in Venezuela this year have described abusive conditions and a lack of due process. Many were not charged with a crime and few were convicted.

A Peruvian-American named Renzo Huamanchumo Castillo said he was detained last year after traveling to Venezuela to join his wife's family. He was accused of terrorism and conspiring to kill Maduro, he explained.

He said the charges made no sense. “Later we realized that I was nothing more than a bargaining chip,” he added.

Huamanchumo, 48, said that during the time he was detained in a well-known Venezuelan prison called Rodeo I, he was beaten frequently, and that he received a liter of cloudy water a day. “It was the worst thing you could imagine,” he said.

In July he was freed in a prisoner swap.

At least two other people with ties to the United States remain imprisoned in Venezuela, according to their families: Aidel Suarez, a Cuban-born U.S. permanent resident, and Jonathan Torres Duque, a Venezuelan-American.

Torres' mother, Rhoda Torres, said her son, now 26, had returned to Venezuela after that the family had been living in the United States for approximately a decade. She believes he was stopped because of his athletic build and American accent, she said.

Genevieve Glatsky,Tibisay Romero,Mariana Martínez andNicholas Caseycontributed reporting. Georgia Gee contributed to the investigation.

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Edward Wong covers global affairs, US international policies and the State Department for the Times.