Venezuela called a hub for cocaine smuggling

Tons of cocaine easily pass through to U.S., Europe, officials say


11:27 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela – A twin-engine plane swoops low across the open waters south of the Dominican Republic, and airtight bales splash into the waves. Three men in a fishing boat haul them in.

Suddenly the men spot a U.S. plane and British helicopters overhead. Video shot by their pursuers shows the men hurling the parcels overboard and trying to flee, but their motor dies. The men are picked up by a Dominican cutter while a British navy helicopter recovers a half-ton of cocaine.

Tracked by U.S. surveillance, the May 12 flight originated in Venezuela, which U.S., European and Colombian anti-drug officials say has become the path of least resistance for smugglers of Colombian cocaine.

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The drug shipments are flowing nearly unhindered from Colombia into Venezuela, then leaving by the ton on ships and planes making deliveries for the multibillion-dollar U.S. and European markets, the officials say. They say high-level corruption has also helped make Venezuela a major haven for drug smugglers running from the law.

The cocaine passing through Venezuela on President Hugo Chávez's watch has risen by as much as 30 tons a year since 2002, reaching an estimated 300 tons in 2006, according to outgoing U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield. That's roughly a third of the world's supply.

"Caracas is replacing Bogotá [Colombia's capital] as a center of everything related to drug operations," said Mildred Camero, who was Venezuela's top anti-drug official until she reported high-level corruption and was dismissed in 2005.

Mr. Chávez says U.S. condemnation on the issue twists the facts "to demonize our government" and ignores the fact that trafficking and drug-related corruption in Venezuela preceded his administration.

"We've landed the strongest blows against drug trafficking in all of Venezuelan history," he said in a June interview, citing increased seizures, including 142 tons of cocaine seized in the past three years.

Airborne smuggling – almost all of it from Venezuela – accounts for about 30 percent of cocaine and heroin traffic out of the Andes, compared with 10 percent two years ago, said U.S. Adm. Jeffrey Hathaway, outgoing director of the multinational command that coordinates drug interdiction in the region.

Of 46 suspected drug flights detected in the Caribbean by U.S. surveillance in the first four months of 2007, all but six originated in Venezuela.

"It's worrisome. It's historic," said José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who was Mexico's top organized-crime prosecutor last year when 5.5 tons of cocaine was seized on a DC-9 jet from Venezuela. Not since the 1990s had cocaine coming into Mexico been seized in such big planes. In February, another ton was seized in Mexico on a flight from Caracas.

Most Europe-bound cocaine is believed to pass through Venezuela, sent aboard ships and jets – 727s, DC-8s and Gulfstreams – to West African nations where enforcement is often weak, Adm. Hathaway said at the command's headquarters in Key West, Fla.

"The reason it is very hard for us to stop these flights is that the aircraft look like, smell like and act like legitimate commercial flights," said Adm. Hathaway, a Coast Guard rear admiral who retired in May as head of the Joint Interagency Task Force-South. "There is either no capability or no desire for Venezuela to halt these aircraft."

In the 12 months leading up to Sept. 14, 2004, U.S. surveillance tracked 38 suspected drug flights from Venezuela to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. The following year, that number grew to 64, and the next to 115. In the 61/2 months up to March 31, there were already 99 more.

Venezuela's anti-drug office chief, Col. Nestor Reverol, said that more than 200 National Guard soldiers have been dismissed in an anti-corruption purge, that some officials have been jailed and that Venezuela actively cooperates with a range of countries, including Colombia, where most of the world's cocaine is produced.

But senior Colombian police and military officials report scant cooperation from the Venezuelans on drug interdiction.

A Dutch naval intelligence officer on the Caribbean island of Curacao, Lt. Cmdr. Frank Hermans, lamented the scarcity of shared intelligence from Venezuela, which is about 40 miles away: "We only encounter targets of interest coming from Venezuela due to surveillance," he said.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration still has about 10 agents in Venezuela, but their operations have been restricted since Mr. Chávez suspended formal cooperation in August 2005, accusing the DEA of being a front for espionage.

The break with the DEA came shortly after the dismissal of Ms. Camero, the Venezuelan anti-drug official, who had worked closely with the agency.

She said she had submitted five reports on high-level drug corruption to the president and vice president, fingering police, military and National Guard officers, customs agents and even two state governors. She would not name names publicly, saying she fears revenge. Ms. Camero said she was told Mr. Chávez never saw her reports.

The State Department says Venezuela has failed to pursue major traffickers and has arrested only low-level figures. In September, when Mr. Chávez extradited a man he called a top Colombian smuggler, Colombian officials said he was a lower-level player.

That man, Farid Feris DomÃ*nguez, told Colombian investigators that several high-ranking Venezuelan officials helped him. Venezuela's justice minister, Pedro Carreno, said authorities are investigating Mr. Feris' claims but suspect he may be lying to please U.S. prosecutors seeking his extradition.

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