Dictator Nicolás Maduro, who was announced as the “winner” of the Venezuelan presidential elections by the Chavista-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE), is still in the sights of the US FBI, which accuses him of being involved in an international drug trafficking network.
In addition to Maduro, other members of the Caracas regime, such as Diosdado Cabello, number 2 of the PSUV, and Vladimir Padrino López, current defense minister, also remain on the US authorities’ wanted list under the same accusation. Like Maduro, they are also on the list of individuals sanctioned by the US.
Other former allies, such as Hugo “The Chicken” Carvajal and Clíver Alcalá Cordones (who currently declares himself an opponent of Maduro) are already in US custody.
According to the FBI, Maduro and his allies were responsible for the so-called “Cartel de Los Soles”, a drug trafficking network that operated within the Venezuelan Armed Forces. The US claims that this organization facilitated large-scale drug trafficking using the South American country’s territory as the main route for international distribution.
Other high-ranking figures in the Venezuelan regime, such as Cabello, Padriño López and Tarek El Aissami (who was arrested by Maduro himself earlier this year), are identified as leaders of this criminal network, which, according to reports, maintains close ties with Colombian guerrilla groups and Mexican drug cartels, such as the Sinaloa Cartel.
The “Los Soles Cartel” was not formed recently. Its existence has been alleged since the 1990s, but it was with the rise of dictator Hugo Chávez to power that the organization was strengthened, using the state apparatus to consolidate its operations. Over the years, the cartel is said to have expanded its activities throughout Latin America, transforming Venezuela into the epicenter of one of the largest drug trafficking schemes in the world.
Allegations linking the Chavista regime to international drug trafficking gained more ground in 2015, when Leamsy Salazar, a former head of Chávez’s security, denounced Diosdado Cabello as one of the cartel’s main leaders. Salazar made the accusation after requesting protection in the United States in exchange for cooperation with the authorities.
Maduro and his allies’ connection to drug trafficking has been a cause for concern for the United States. In 2020, still under Donald Trump’s administration, the United States Department of Justice decided to file a series of charges against Maduro and 14 other senior officials of his regime, officially accusing them of leading the “Los Soles Cartel.”
According to the US, the Chavista regime was involved in drug trafficking operations, money laundering and other criminal activities. The Americans have since offered a $15 million reward for Maduro’s capture.plus another good amount of money for information about Cabello and El Aissami.
However, this year, before actually starting his electoral campaign, Maduro announced a broad “anti-corruption operation” that resulted in the arrest of dozens of people linked to the state oil company PDVSA, accused of embezzling more than US$20 billion. Among those arrested was El Aissami, until then identified as a key figure in the Chavista regime and who was in the FBI’s sights.
For many analysts, Maduro’s operation was actually a retaliatory move within the regime itself, especially against El Aissami, seen as a person with considerable influence within the country’s “power game”.
El Aissami is not the only Chavista accused of participating in the cartel who is currently in prison. Hugo Carvajal is currently awaiting trial in the United States, where he was extradited last year, while Clíver Alcalá, a retired major in the Venezuelan Army who went from ally to opponent, has already been sentenced in the United States to 21 years in prison for his crimes of collaboration with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which involved operations within the cartel.
The accusations of involvement in drug trafficking are not the only ones weighing against Maduro and his allies. International human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, also accuse them of crimes against humanity, including torture, extrajudicial killings and violent repression of political dissidents.
The Chavista regime is even the target of an investigation at the International Criminal Court (ICC), where prosecutor Karim Khan claims that Maduro allowed the execution of operations that culminated in rapes, electric shocks and beatings of opponents who were arbitrarily arrested.
These accusations, combined with those of drug trafficking, have contributed to the international community increasingly isolating the Chavista regime, which is currently trying at all costs to validate an election marked by arbitrary actions and accusations of manipulation of the results.
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