CARACAS - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday he had ordered the expulsion of three US consular officials who he said had been conspiring against his government.

Maduro did not identify the officials, but he said the Venezuelan foreign minister would give more details later.

"It's a group of US functionaries who are in the universities. We've been watching them having meetings in the private universities for two months. They work in visas," Maduro said in a nationally televised broadcast.