MARACAIBO, Venezuela—Seeing Venezuela align with the Trump administration after the U.S. overthrow of Nicolás Maduro, shrimp magnate José Enrique Rincón thought he could safely return home to reclaim the $700 million business the authoritarian government had seized from him. Instead, he was jailed shortly after landing in June.

Now, the U.S.-backed government in Caracas is carving up Rincón’s sprawling Grupo Lamar conglomerate and allowing outside investors to manage pieces of it. Among them: a Turkish executive who last month married President Trump’s ally in a ceremony attended by prominent U.S. officials.

Nearly 11 months after Maduro’s ouster, Rincón’s ordeal exposes a contradiction in Trump’s plans to turn Venezuela into an investment hub. Politically motivated jailings and the seizure of private businesses—well-worn practices in nearly 28 years of leftist rule here—live on under Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodríguez, and the U.S. government apparatus that controls much of the interim leadership now.

Rincón, 62 years old, was arrested after returning from exile in Panama. He remains in a 9-by-6-foot cell at the Rodeo I prison near Caracas, where his family says he has lost 25 pounds and suffers from unaddressed cardiac issues. Relatives say the government fabricated treason and terrorism charges to justify taking control of Maracaibo-based Lamar, the country’s dominant exporter of farmed shrimp, in late 2024.

“This has been one long horror film,” said Rincón’s sister, Mariana Rincón, one of the few relatives remaining in Venezuela and the only one allowed to visit him.

Lamar is one of numerous assets—ranging from farmland to metal-processing plants—that were seized by Maduro’s government and still remain in state hands under Rodríguez.

The firm is now operated by a Turkish company, Miller Holding. Its chief executive, 29-year-old Turhan Mildon, last month married Trump’s former personal attorney, Alina Habba, in New York. Among the guests were Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Miller Holding also operates a network of Venezuelan cement factories and markets coffee beans, concessions granted under Maduro. In a recent interview with Forbes Turkey, Mildon lamented Maduro’s ouster but expressed little concern for his businesses.

“In my grandfather’s time, know-how was very important,” Mildon told the magazine. “Now, know-who is important.”A spokeswoman for Mildon has said in the past that Miller Holding operates Lamar’s shrimp facilities but doesn’t own them. Venezuela’s Information Ministry and Miller Holding didn’t respond to requests for comment regarding Rincón’s detention.

A U.S. official said the Trump administration opposed Maduro-era expropriations and corruption and had urged Venezuelan authorities to cancel Mildon’s cement contract if it violated sanctions or resulted from corruption. The official said reversing decades of corruption would take time, but that the administration was working to address it.

Venezuela’s total shrimp output has fallen more than 90% since 2024, according to industry figures, a collapse driven largely by Lamar’s decline under state management. The downturn left roughly 9,000 workers jobless in western Venezuela, while more than 100 of Rincón’s relatives and business associates fled the country.

Rodríguez’s continuation of Maduro-era seizures threatens to undermine Washington’s economic recovery strategy for the country, said allies of Rincón.

“They destroyed everything,” Rincón’s son, Juan Diego Rincón, said in a phone interview from Panama. “The persecution is ongoing, they’re ruining businesses and it’s even stoking migration.”Rincón spent four decades building his business.

In 1988, he started selling the iconic blue crab found in the waters of Venezuela’s giant Lake Maracaibo before expanding into shrimp farming and later into supermarkets and processing recyclable materials. By 2022, Lamar’s annual shrimp exports to Europe reached about $200 million, making it a rare private-sector success in a country dependent almost entirely on oil.

Lamar became the primary employer in Zulia state, offering cash production bonuses, subsidized food, and medical care in a region with few formal job opportunities outside of border smuggling. The bulk of its workforce was made up of indigenous Wayuu, thousands of whom were hired to peel and package shrimp in processing plants around Maracaibo. The Wayuu language was so common on the job that Rincón learned phrases to talk to employees.

But the family’s fortunes changed after the U.S. said Maduro rigged his 2024 re-election and jailed hundreds of political adversaries. In November that year, Diosdado Cabello, then Maduro’s top security official, publicly accused Rincón of funding the political opposition and plotting against the government. No evidence was presented.

Within days, Rincón’s relatives and executives fled to Colombia, Panama and the U.S. Security forces seized offices, processing plants, apartments and thousands of acres of farmland without court orders. The takeover hit Zulia’s Wayuu population hardest.

“I don’t know who keeps saying that things in Venezuela are getting better,” said Jonathan González, 30, a Wayuu indigenous man and former Lamar processor who had to halt construction on his home after losing his job. “For a lot of us, things are much worse now than they were before.”Under a state-appointed board, Lamar faltered. Former managers said the company suffered from a lack of capital, while unpaid workers left in droves. A major processing facility was later destroyed in a fire.

Almost six months after the U.S. military operation on Jan. 3 that captured Maduro on drug-trafficking charges—which Maduro denies—Rincón believed the political landscape had shifted enough for him to return and reclaim his property. “He thought this was the moment,” his son said.

Rincón’s aging father and younger sister were waiting for him at La Chinita International Airport near Maracaibo. Venezuelan investigative police detained him upon landing.

Rincón returned to reclaim his business and face charges “because it’s the only way to demonstrate my innocence and salvage the honor of my family,” he said in a submission to the antiterrorism court handling the case.

Venezuelan prosecutors haven’t provided documents outlining the charges or the evidence against Rincón, his lawyer said in a court filing made last month. Rincón complained of deteriorating health, cardiac problems and insufficient access to the medications needed after a gastric bypass.

While Rincón remains jailed, Venezuelan authorities continue to court investors for the industry he had dominated.

Last month, Venezuela’s Fishing Ministry announced plans to host business delegations from Indonesia to seek new investment for the shrimp sector.

These days, ski-masked officers of the Special Operations Group, a security force that located Rincón’s properties, drive the businessman’s vehicles and use his house in Maracaibo as an improvised command center, family members and business aides said.

Rincón’s sister, Mariana Rincón, delivers food, medication and industry trade magazines to his cell every week as she seeks his release.

She attempted to her brother with local human-rights groups that track political detentions in Venezuela. The organizations, overwhelmed by a surge this year in families reporting arbitrary arrests of their loved ones, placed him on a waiting list. He was assigned number 1,601.