2023-11-06 13:00:00
Courtesy Department of Justice
The regime of Nicolás Maduro, dissatisfied with the plundering of the country’s oil wealth, has turned its attention to an activity that at the moment seems more lucrative: drug trafficking.
A massive leak of confidential Colombian documents provides additional evidence about the role currently played by senior figures of the socialist regime in Caracas and officers of the armed forces in the export of hundreds of tons of cocaine per year. The documents were complemented by interviews with nearly two dozen former officials of the Chavista government, former officials of the US anti-drug agency DEA, and former members of the criminal operation operating in Venezuela.
The present investigation – carried out jointly by the Miami Herald, the Venezuelan news portal Armando.info, and the journalistic investigation organization OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) – shows that the role in drug trafficking activities of Venezuelan authorities has progressed over time from an initial role of taking money to turn a blind eye to that of active players and heads of operations.
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“They are the ones in charge now, directly involved in the transportation of cocaine, the distribution of cocaine, not only to the United States, but also to Europe,” said Mike Vigil, former head of International Operations for the DEA.
This reality is the backdrop to the efforts undertaken by the Biden administration to thaw tense relations between Caracas and Washington and promote political stability in Venezuela. Last month, Washington partially lifted sanctions imposed by the previous administration after Caracas pledged to hold free and fair elections in the South American country next year.
However, those efforts began to falter within a few days, after the regime took action to overturn the selection of María Corina Machado as an opposition candidate, after the leader won the primaries of the opponents of Chavismo by an immense margin.
This article is part of the series “NarcoFiles: The new criminal order”, a transnational journalistic investigation into global organized crime, its innovations, its tentacles and those who fight it.
The project, led by OCCRP in alliance with the Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation (CLIP), began with a massive leak of documents from the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office. The leak was shared with the Miami Herald and more than 30 other media outlets around the world.
Journalists examined the leaked documents and corroborated the information through interviews and other independent reporting.
Reports obtained through leaks and testimonies obtained through nearly two dozen interviews reveal the direct participation of the Venezuelan military, in partnership with elements of the Colombian guerrilla, in drug trafficking operations, and how the regime has become increasingly dependent on money from this illicit activity to counteract the collapse of the oil industry and the weight of US sanctions.
The end result is that Venezuela is currently an important bridge in global drug trafficking exports, from where between 250 and 350 metric tons per year leave, with a street value of between $6.25 billion and $8.75 billion.
The phenomenon complicates diplomatic relations with Venezuela due to doubts about whether by entering into dialogue with the regime one is doing so with revolutionaries who sometimes dabble in drug trafficking or with drug lords who have taken over an entire country.
The volumes detected suggest that reality could be closer to the former than the latter, said the sources interviewed.
The trend has not gone unnoticed in Washington. Three years ago, the Justice Department brought charges against senior officials of the regime. Maduroaccusing them of leading the so-called Cartel de Los Soles, named after the sun insignia worn by Venezuelan generals.
But some harbored suspicions that the charges, which have not led to arrests of top officials, were made for political purposes, especially given that President Donald Trump’s administration had rejected Maduro’s legitimacy, instead recognizing the leader of the opposition Juan Guaidó.
The documents included in the Colombian leak, along with other corroborating evidence, could help dispel those doubts.
“The Cartel of the Suns is a major, highly criminalized drug trafficking organization that…operates from the highest levels of the Venezuelan government,” said IBI Consultants, a security consulting firm specializing in transnational organized crime in Latin America in a confidential report that was developed for a US law enforcement agency.
According to reports obtained through the NarcoFiles, Colombian authorities consider the Cartel of the Suns to be an “active threat” along with the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels and a Venezuelan mega-gang known as El Tren de Aragua.
In one of the confidential reports, Colombian intelligence officials reported that the Poster of the Suns is active along the border departments of Vichada, Guainía and Arauca, where it established alliances with Colombian guerrillas and Mexican cartels to establish and strengthen maritime routes for the transportation of drugs to the United States and Europe, as well as for the smuggling of gold and other illicitly extracted minerals.
21 September 2023, Venezuela, La Guaira: Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, shows a folder containing a proposed law to promote non-oil exports at a press conference at the Humboldt Hotel in Waraira Repano National Park. Photo: Jesus Vargas/dpa/Sipa USA picture alliance dpa/picture-alliance/Sipa USA
These alliances created the foundations for a thriving illegal economy, says one of the top secret reports prepared by the Colombian army and obtained through NarcoFiles. The platform is “used for the movement of contraband, arms trafficking and liquid supplies necessary for the production of narcotics to later be taken to Venezuela and from there distributed to Central America.” [en su camino a Estados Unidos] and Europe,” the report says.
The epicenter of this vast network is the mountainous region of Catatumbo, on the border with the Venezuelan state of Zulia, which has the third largest concentration of coca leaf plantations in the country. Sources said the vast majority, if not all, of the 42,000 hectares of coca leaves planted there are turned into coca paste and then destined for Venezuela through a series of rivers.
While coca leaf eradication has traditionally been a key element of Colombia’s drug war, there has been a strategic shift. Under the administration of leftist President Gustavo Petro, elected in 2022, Colombia has changed its approach, choosing to persecute Colombian bosses and leave farmers alone with their crops.
The change in strategy has led to a dramatic increase in acreage dedicated to coca production, DEA sources told the Herald. Each hectare of coca leaves harvested has an average yield of 7.9 kilograms of powder cocaine, according to figures provided by a report on Colombia just published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Those figures suggest that more than 330 tons transited through Zulia state from the Catatumbo region last year alone, an alarming figure given that experts say Catatumbo supplies only about 60% of the drugs entering Venezuela. The rest is transported by rivers in the plains region and the jungle region in the south.
The Catatumbo plantations, mostly belonging to independent farmers who cultivate small plots, have become an important source of income for members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), and members of the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as for the People’s Liberation Army (EPL). According to one of the reports dated 2022, the cocaine trade produced in that area alone generates around 25 billion pesos, about $5.9 billion dollars, each year.
However, a series of armed clashes between the three groups last year changed the equation, and most coca leaf production is currently controlled by members of the ELN, who acquire the coca leaf from farmers, and They process them into paste or powder cocaine to sell to the Venezuelan cartel, sources said.
Experts say the Venezuelan regime began facilitating drug trafficking almost 20 years ago, but they note that the last three years have seen an explosive increase in the volume handled by the military.
Three former DEA agents who monitored the situation in Venezuela at different times agreed with Vigil’s assessment of the current role of the Venezuelan military and high level of the Maduro regime in drug trafficking operations. That view was also confirmed by a half-dozen former Venezuelan officials who broke ranks with the regime and now live in the United States.
One of the former DEA agents said that given the hierarchical structure of the armed forces, where every decision comes directly from the top, “there is no doubt that the top commanders and the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, are directly involved.”
In fact, Padrino is one of the Venezuelan officials accused by the United States Department of Justice of drug trafficking.
But he’s not the only one. Among those requested by US justice are 13 other high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Maduro and Chavista deputy Diosdado Cabello, normally considered the second most powerful figure in the regime.
Also on the list are former vice president Tareck El Aissami, Interior Minister Néstor Reverol, former head of military intelligence Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, and General Clíver Alcalá.
The filing of charges has not been entirely an exercise in futility. Carvajal was extradited to the United States from Spain earlier this year to face drug trafficking charges. Alcalá already pleaded guilty in New York to having assisted the FARC but denies having participated in drug trafficking operations.
According to data obtained through this investigation, the number of regime officials involved in drug operations is much higher than the list of defendants suggests. Interviews conducted by the Herald with more than a dozen military and former regime officials revealed the names of more than 75 officials and businessmen close to central government figures involved in the cartel’s operations.
The majority are active or retired members of the Venezuelan armed forces, but the organization also includes local and regional authorities in charge of the areas through which drugs circulate and businessmen who serve as front men.
Drug revenues have helped the regime withstand the economic blow caused by US sanctions and the drop in oil revenues caused by the collapse of the oil industry under the hands of the Caracas regime.
A May 2022 report from the US State Department described Venezuela as a preferred route for drug trafficking, predominantly cocaine. Another study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office highlighted drug export partnerships involving “criminal organizations, corrupt individuals from the Maduro regime, and others,” in association with elements of the Colombian guerrilla.
The wealth generated from drug sales, often hidden abroad or in opaque offshore corporations, has become a major source of income for the Venezuelan regime and economy. According to a recent report by Transparencia Venezuela, the branch of Transparency International in the South American country, and the analysis firm Ecoanalítica, drug trafficking revenues amounted to $5.1 billion in 2022, or 8.5% of the country’s gross domestic product. .
Sources within Venezuela emphasize that there are three main axes of operations.
▪ Catatumbo Axis: This is the largest operation and channels that coming from the Catatumbo region, where coca leaves are converted into paste or powder cocaine. The product is then loaded onto small boats that travel to Venezuela along the Catatumbo, Zulia and Tarra rivers from Colombian towns such as Ocaña, La Gabarra and Tibú.
On the Venezuelan side, operators controlled by the Cartel of the Suns have established laboratories capable of transforming paste into powder cocaine, allowing them to obtain greater profits. Many times the drugs are taken to landing strips built near rivers. Some of these have been detected around the towns of Contrados and El Cruce. Flights normally depart from Venezuela heading north and then turn sharply to the left towards Central America, often reaching Honduras.
Maduro’s regime Criminal Division, Department of Justice
While the role of the military in this area has traditionally been to receive payments to allow the entry of drugs, they have gradually taken more control of operations and become suppliers to Mexican cartels. In the Catatumbo theater, military control comes from the army garrison near the town of Casigua-El Cubo, Fuerte Motilón, which maintains control of the area.
The flight route through the Caribbean, heading north or north-northeast before turning west, was designed to avoid radar installations on the Colombian island of San Andrés, near the Nicaraguan coast, the sources said. But sources said this route began to change after U.S. officials became aware of it, and smugglers have been experimenting with speedboats heading to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
▪ Arauca Axis: The second theater of operations is located on the Colombian-Venezuelan plains, a region through which they transport a significant portion of the coca leaf harvested in Putumayo (133,000 hectares by 2022) and Guaviare (16,700 hectares). In this axis, the drugs are sent to the towns of Cravo Norte, Tame, Fortul and Saravena, from where they are taken by rivers to Venezuela.
Since much of the plains are prone to flooding during the rainy season, most loads are transported by small boats or canoes before reaching San Fernando, the capital of Apure, or nearby towns.
The area also has livestock herds with access to rivers and small private landing strips, and these have been converted by members of the Venezuelan cartel into storage and distribution centers.
Much of the drugs sent through this axis end up being transported to Puerto Cabello, the largest port in the country, where the cocaine is hidden in cargo ships destined for Europe, the Caribbean or Central America. Sources from the interior of Venezuela said that the shipments that transit through the Arauca region represent around 30% of the total that enters the country.
▪ Vichada-Orinoco Axis. This is the smallest theater of operations and operates around the Vichada and Orinoco rivers. Shipments leaving Colombia are normally taken by river to the border town of Isla Ratón, and from there they are taken by boat across the Orinoco River to Puerto Ayacucho, on their way north to the states of Delta Amacuro and Monagas.
Most of these loads are small and transported in canoes, and represent about a tenth of the total that enters the country.
While most cocaine shipments enter Venezuela through remote and sometimes jungle areas, sources said overall control lies in the hands of those who control the country in Caracas.
“All of this is managed by the same powerful factions that have control of the state, who have turned drug trafficking into an instrument of the state to survive,” said Douglas Farah, president of IBI Consultants. “This is not something coincidental. “It has become a central element that allows the regime to remain in power.”
This story was originally published on November 6, 2023 8:00 AM.
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