According to a document from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Nicolás Maduro used diplomatic cover to facilitate the return of profits from cocaine sales.
“Between approximately 2006 and 2008, while serving as Venezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maduro Moros sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to individuals he knew to be drug traffickers to help them move drug money from Mexico to Venezuela under diplomatic cover. When the traffickers needed to move drug money from Mexico to Venezuela, Maduro Moros facilitated the movement of private planes under diplomatic cover to ensure the flights would not be subject to scrutiny by law enforcement or the military.
On these occasions, Maduro Moros would call the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico to announce that a diplomatic mission would be arriving by private plane. Then, while the drug traffickers met with the Venezuelan ambassador to Mexico under the auspices of a diplomatic mission from Maduro Moros, his plane would load the drug money. The plane would then return to Venezuela under diplomatic cover,” the report states. file.
The United States Justice Department also maintains that high-ranking Venezuelan officials, led by Maduro, facilitated and protected the shipment of tons of cocaine for years in alliance with Los Zetas (now the Northeast Cartel).
Furthermore, the document lists the participation of military personnel, politicians, and logistics operators of the Venezuelan regime, asserting that a system of corruption, protection, and violence existed that transformed Venezuela into one of the world’s leading drug trafficking hubs.
In addition to the charges brought against Maduro, the legal document mentions the president’s relationships with various figures, including Diosdado Cabello, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, Cilia Flores, and Nicolás Maduro Guerra.
The report states that since 1999, Venezuelan leaders “collaborated with narco-terrorists from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas, and the Tren de Aragua,” a relationship that allegedly involved, in addition to Venezuela and Mexico, a multinational structure with connections in Colombia, Central America, and the United States.
The paragraphs indicate that the collaboration went beyond mere military protection; it involved the institutionalization and use of state resources for drug trafficking to the benefit of Los Zetas.
Similarly, Venezuelan officials sold diplomatic passports to drug traffickers, facilitated covert flights, and offered official cover for the movement of money and narcotics. The payment of bribes was commonplace; whenever a shipment was intercepted, the response was the delivery of millions of dollars in exchange for silence:
“The profits from drug trafficking flowed from military and police bases to the highest levels of power, enriching Maduro’s family circles and his main allies,” the US Justice Department alleges.
Source: infobae
