rug trafficking out of Venezuela predates Nicolás Maduro and will long outlive him. The question is whether the cocaine trade will continue to be managed and regulated by the Chavista regime, or whether Maduro’s removal will weaken state-embedded drug trafficking.
“So long as Venezuela sits right alongside the source of most of the world’s cocaine, and so long as it remains impossible to guarantee the rule of law and territorial control, the drugs will continue to flow, whether you call that the Cartel de los Soles or not,” said Phil Gunson, a journalist and analyst who has resided in Venezuela for more than 25 years.
The Cartel of the Suns, which existed before Maduro took power, remains untouched by his departure. Indeed, if the Cartel of the Suns has any cohesive central leadership, it is embodied by the long-time Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino and the current Minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello.
And Cabello is in charge of the country’s fight against the drug trade.
“We have dealt successive, devastating blows to the drug trade; they know that drugs are not passing through here at this time,” he said in January, denying the existence of the Cartel of the Suns.
Corruption in the military is now institutionalized. While there is economic reactivation being pushed by the United States and the new president, Delcy Rodríguez, military wages remain extremely low, less than $200 a month for a senior officer. And the cost of living in Venezuela, which is increasingly dollarized, is more expensive than neighboring Colombia, where the minimum wage is over $450. Members of the security forces and government employees need access to other revenue to survive. This is unlikely to change in the short term and will continue to feed the system of corruption across institutions of the state.
Delcy Rodríguez was a key player in Maduro’s system of hybrid criminal governance before assuming the presidency, whereby senior members of the Chavista regime and generals were given access to criminal rents, or received government contracts, in return for loyalty. Indeed, General Cliver Alcalá, now serving a sentence for drug trafficking in the United States and a member of the Cartel of the Suns, described Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, currently President of the National Assembly, as “the true architects of the Venezuelan dictatorial regime.”
Delcy Rodríguez has been linked to corruption schemes steering government contracts to close friends, allegedly in return for kickbacks, and has attracted the attention of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for alleged involvement in drug trafficking.
There are other powerful criminal drivers that suggest that drug trafficking in and through Venezuela will continue unfettered:
- Colombia is producing record amounts of cocaine, and in the midst of an election year where few changes to policy are expected, drug production is likely to only increase.
- One of Colombia’s top cocaine producing zones, the area of Catatumbo in Norte de Santander department, lies on the Venezuelan border. Historically, most of its production has moved into Venezuela.
- The Colombian rebel group, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), which has presence in at least eight of Venezuela’s 24 states, is deeply involved in the drug trade and is the principal supplier for drug trafficking in Venezuela. It is stronger than ever and has deep ties to the Chavista regime and elements of the Venezuelan military.
- Europe has now overtaken the United States as the principal market for cocaine. Many of the drug smuggling routes to Europe, via the Caribbean and West Africa, pass through Venezuela.
- Venezuela has become a cocaine-producing nation, with industrial-sized coca fields and drug processing laboratories manufacturing high purity cocaine.
- There is now an established drug smuggling infrastructure in Venezuela and the presence of international buyers. History shows that once established, this infrastructure is hard to uproot.
- All the Venezuela organs of state have been penetrated by corruption, and none of the democratic checks and balances remain in place, ensuring that there is no transparency, and the justice system is utterly compromised. Even if there were a will to tackle crime and corruption in Venezuela, there currently are no tools with which to take effective measures.
Read more at
https://insightcrime.org/investigations/future-drug-trafficking-out-venezuela/
