{"id":20622,"date":"2026-01-24T18:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T17:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=20622"},"modified":"2026-03-10T21:13:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T20:13:52","slug":"venezuela-is-a-true-narco-state-maduro-used-its-levers-to-flood-the-west-with-cocaine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2026\/01\/venezuela-is-a-true-narco-state-maduro-used-its-levers-to-flood-the-west-with-cocaine\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela is a true narco-state. Maduro used its levers to flood the West with cocaine"},"content":{"rendered":"

From:<\/strong> drug-watch-international@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Maggie Petito <\/strong>mlp3@starpower.net<\/span>
\nSent:<\/strong> 08 January 2026 11:46\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

According to his captors, the Venezuelan president is not a mere cartel boss. He is the most powerful drug trafficker ever to face justice<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

by London Daily Telegraph – Colin Freeman – 07 January 2026<\/span><\/p>\n

(The following article is derived from a previous article by a Mr. Maltz, U.S. DEA, Ret)<\/span><\/p>\n

For customs agents at\u00a0Paris\u2019s Charles de Gaulle airport, the haul was like nothing they had ever seen. Packed into 30 suitcases on an airliner from Venezuela\u2019s Maiquetia airport was 1.3 tonnes of pure cocaine \u2013 the biggest airport seizure in French history.<\/strong> It was, however, clearly no routine \u201cdrug mule\u201d operation. Whoever had got such a huge amount through Venezuelan airport security must surely have had inside help. According to an indictment unsealed in a New York courtroom this week, that help went well beyond a few corrupt baggage handlers. Instead, the ultimate \u201cinsider\u201d was Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, who appeared in court on Monday, accused of drug trafficking on a mammoth scale.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maduro, prosecutors allege, \u201cabused\u201d his public roles for over 25 years, and \u201cpartnered with his co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority…\u2009to transport thousands of tonnes of cocaine\u201d from airports, airstrips and ports run by conniving regime officials to America and Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) indictment says that following the Paris airport seizure in 2013, Maduro\u2019s regime arrested dozens of local officials as a \u201ccover up\u201d. However, behind the scenes, he held a panicked summit with Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela\u2019s current interior minister, and Hugo Carvajal, the former head of military intelligence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

A member of the National Guard watches over 2.6 tonnes of cocaine seized in Zulia, Venezuela, in 2013\u00a0Credit: Jimmy Pirela\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the meeting, Maduro told Cabello and Carvajal that they should not have used the airport for drug trafficking after the 2006 seizure in Mexico [where five tonnes of cocaine were discovered in a commercial plane arriving from Venezuela], and that they should instead use other well-established drug routes.\u00a0 \u201cShortly thereafter, Maduro authorised the arrests of certain Venezuelan military officials in an effort to divert public and law enforcement scrutiny away from the shipment and its cover up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Cartel of the Suns\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Inside details of the Paris airport bust emerged after\u00a0Maduro was snatched from Caracas\u00a0by US commandos on Saturday, along with his wife, Cilia Flores, who faces similar charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both have pleaded not guilty, with the erstwhile Venezuelan leader\u00a0declaring himself a \u201cprisoner of war\u201d\u00a0when he stood in the dock on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet if US officials are to be believed, he is possibly the most powerful trafficker ever to face justice \u2013 not a mere cartel boss, like Colombia\u2019s Pablo Escobar or Mexico\u2019s Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n, but the serving head of a nation state, who used its levers of power to flood the West with cocaine.\u00a0 The DOJ\u2019s indictment alleges that he heads the \u201cCartel of the Suns\u201d, a military-run trafficking group, so named because of the sun-shaped stars on Venezuelan generals\u2019 epaulettes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether US prosecutors can prove their claims is another matter. Doubts have already been raised, for example, over whether the Cartel of the Suns is a genuine syndicate in the manner of Escobar\u2019s or Guzm\u00e1n\u2019s. Some analysts claim it is nothing more than Venezuelan slang for any official figure suspected of corruption. And while\u00a0Trump has called Maduro a drug \u201ckingpin\u201d, the courtroom battle will come down to whether lawyers are able to marshal solid, detailed evidence to convince any judge and jury of his alleged crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the indictment cites multiple instances of Maduro directly facilitating the drug trade, from organising diplomatic passports for known gangsters to hosting cocaine trafficking paramilitaries at his presidential palace.<\/span><\/p>\n

A narco-state<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Irrespective of his personal culpability, most analysts also agree that under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has become a classic narco-state \u2013 a lawless, gun-ruled country, where drugs are one of the few ways to make money.<\/span><\/p>\n

Law enforcement officials say it is now a major hub for cocaine from neighbouring Colombia, with its position on Latin America\u2019s north east coastline making it a perfect launch spot for shipping to Europe. According to UN estimates, 40 per cent of the class A drug that reaches Europe passes through Venezuelan borders first.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fairness, the country was a smugglers\u2019 paradise even before Chavez took over in 1999. With a porous 1,500-mile border with Colombia \u2013 where most cocaine is produced \u2013 and a long Caribbean coastline, plus lots of dense, remote jungles, it has long been a place that is both easy to hide in and hard to police. At the same time, its modern networks of roads and ports \u2013 built with Venezuela\u2019s oil wealth in stabler times \u2013 make it easy for gangs to transit contraband quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Insight Crime, which reports extensively on Latin America\u2019s drug trade, Cosa Nostra mafia clans also settled there in decades gone by as part of a post-war wave of Italian immigration. From the 1980s, they embraced the cocaine trade, which soon also began corrupting the Venezuelan government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things got dramatically worse, however, under Chavez\u2019s hardline socialist regime. A ferocious critic of the \u201cimperialist\u201d US, he took the view that Venezuela was not to blame for the cocaine habits of wealthy North Americans. In 2005, he expelled the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from Venezuela, claiming that its \u201cwar on drugs\u201d was an excuse to spy on his regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

Western officials, however, linked the expulsion to his partnership with Colombia\u2019s Left-wing FARC paramilitary group, which paid huge bribes to traffic cocaine through Venezuelan territory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Cocaine Air\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As Chavez\u2019s socialist policies gradually wrecked the economy, smuggling profits became key to regime survival, with ministers, the security services and powerful street gangs all involved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Named in the US indictment alongside Maduro, for example, is Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the leader of Venezuela\u2019s notorious Tren de Aragua gang. The indictment claims that heavily armed Tren de Aragua footsoldiers would escort cocaine shipments to airports and secret airstrips.<\/span><\/p>\n

So emboldened were Venezuela\u2019s traffickers that they would even commandeer old airliners to export their product, in what was dubbed \u201cCocaine Air\u201d. One prominent case cited in the indictment was in 2006, when a DC9 airliner carrying 5.5 tonnes of cocaine was seized in Mexico. It had taken off from the presidential runway at Maiquetia airport, which lies just outside Caracas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The shipment is thought to have been organised by Walid Makled, a Venezuelan businessman later jailed for other trafficking crimes. During his trial, he declared, \u201cAll my business associates are generals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Maduro is also accused of selling diplomatic passports to known traffickers when he served as foreign minister. This, the indictment says, was to help channel bags of cash from drug sales in Mexico back into Venezuela, using diplomatic cover to stop the bags from being searched.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn these occasions, Maduro called the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico to advise that a diplomatic mission would be arriving by private plane,\u201d the indictment says. \u201cThen, while the traffickers met with the Venezuelan ambassador to Mexico under the auspices of a diplomatic mission from Maduro, their plane was loaded with the drug proceeds. The plane would then return to Venezuela under diplomatic cover.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trafficking product through Africa<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Drug enforcement experts believe that \u201cCocaine Air\u201d was only possible because Venezuela\u2019s traffickers had access to proper airports, where full-size airliners could take off and land. The larger planes also extended the traffickers\u2019 reach, allowing them to open up new smuggling routes to West Africa, where product would be warehoused before being shipped to Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2009, a burned-out Venezuelan Boeing 727 was found in a remote area of Mali, having apparently ferried up to 10 tonnes of cocaine. Venezuelan smugglers were also flying cocaine into the bankrupt west African nations of Guinea and Guinea Bissau. Both were burgeoning narco-states at the time, with cocaine cartels having bought up almost their entire governments.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US first publicly accused Maduro of trafficking in 2020, when he was named in an indictment along with Carvajal and Cabello. The latest indictment expands the allegations against Maduro and also accuses him of partnering with \u201cnarco-terrorists\u201d including FARC, Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa and Los Zetas cartels, and the Tren de Aragua gang.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the five others named in the indictment is Maduro\u2019s son, Nicol\u00e1s Ernesto Maduro Guerra, who is accused of flying drug packages to Margarita Island, a known smuggling haunt off Venezuela\u2019s northern coast. In 2020, Guerra also allegedly met with FARC guerrillas in Colombia to discuss smuggling \u201clarge quantities of cocaine and weapons into the United States over the course of the next six years\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The indictment also mentions the notorious \u201cnarco-nephews\u201d case, in which two nephews of Maduro\u2019s wife were arrested on drug trafficking charges by undercover DEA agents in Haiti in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pair, who flew into Haiti on a plane carrying 800 kilos of cocaine, were jailed for 18 years in New York in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

Former allies turning against Maduro?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Among those who will be following Maduro\u2019s trial closely is retired narcotics agent, Derek Maltz, who headed the DEA\u2019s Special Operations Division from 2005 to 2014. He helped lead the team that went on to capture \u201cEl Chapo\u201d 12 years ago and also monitored Venezuela\u2019s rising prominence as a narco-hub. He believes the US authorities would not have moved on Maduro without building up a strong case first.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a huge amount of experience in putting these kinds of cases together,\u201d he says. \u201cIn my experience, these investigations usually rely on high-level confidential sources, which are then corroborated with other evidence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Maltz adds the prosecution could well draw on testimony from fellow Maduro regime members, several of whom have already been arrested by the US over the years, and who might cooperate in return for reduced sentences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One possible figure is Carvajal, who was arrested in Spain in 2021, and sentenced to life imprisonment on trafficking charges in the US last June. He is now tipped as a possible star witness, having reportedly written a letter to President Donald Trump last month in which he said he was willing to testify.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s son, Nicol\u00e1s Ernesto Maduro Guerra, is accused of flying drug packages to Margarita Island\u00a0Credit: Leonardo Fernandez Viloria\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n

Maltz compares it to the groundbreaking 1990s prosecution of New York mob boss, John Gotti \u2013 dramatised in the 1994 film,\u00a0Getting Gotti<\/em>, in which a former associate, Sammy \u201cThe Bull\u201d Gravano, gave evidence in return for leniency for his own crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCarvajal is thought to have set up a lot of the smuggling infrastructure, running operations under both Maduro and Chavez,\u201d Maltz says. \u201cA guy like that could be very useful. These kinds of people can also usually produce corroborative evidence, whether it\u2019s phone call records, emails, bank account details or whatever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Given that Maduro and his wife will be able to afford America\u2019s best defence lawyers, it remains to be seen whether evidence will secure convictions. But for Maltz, the prospect of seeing Venezuela\u2019s role in the drug trade aired in a courtroom will be welcome in itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I took over the Special Operations Division in 2005, it came to my attention almost immediately that Venezuela was growing in importance as a command and control hub,\u201d he says. \u201cThe traffickers could operate there with impunity, partly because we had limited visibility there after Chavez shut down the DEA.\u201d Maltz also feels that Europe should be grateful for the US\u2019 action despite the unease from some leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer, over the legality of the operation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Venezuelans have been weaponising drugs to harm Americans, and inundating Europe with cocaine too \u2013 I don\u2019t think Europeans quite realise how much of a major player Venezuela has become in the drug trade,\u201d Maltz says. \u201cPresident Trump isn\u2019t [only] helping keep America free of this trade, he\u2019s helping Europe too.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0 www.drugwatch.org<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: drug-watch-international@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Maggie Petito mlp3@starpower.net Sent: 08 January 2026 11:46\u00a0 According to his captors, the Venezuelan president is not a mere cartel boss. He is the most powerful drug trafficker ever to face justice by London Daily Telegraph – Colin Freeman – 07 January 2026 (The following article is derived from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,32,20,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cocaine","category-crime-violence-prison","category-others","category-prevention-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20624,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20622\/revisions\/20624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}