Florida mystery woman held in Venezuela coup plot had links to arms ring
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned Colombian law enforcement several times that a Florida resident tangled up in last year’s slapdash failed coup in Venezuela may be part of an international arms smuggling ring.
In a letter dated last June 1, the Homeland Security
Investigations division of DHS warned Colombia’s customs police agency that it
had been tracking calls to a cellular phone from the 305 area code that was
registered to Yacsy Álvarez Mirabal.
She’s the Venezuelan national who owns a home in Tampa,
frequents Miami and was arrested last September in connection to a weapons
seizure linked to what became a botched Venezuelan coup launched from Colombia.
The letter from Julio Magallan, the adjunct attache for
Homeland Security Investigations at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, alerted about a
weapons ring under investigation for allegedly trafficking arms from the United
States and Europe to Colombia.
According to information in hand, the letter warned,
“possible members of said criminal organization are carrying out coordination
for criminal purposes” through that cellphone number “used by alias Alex, alias
Yacsy Álvarez.”
Magallan had also sent letters to the same agency last May
25 and June 10, alerting about two Colombian cellphones allegedly used by
Álvarez.
The letters appear in Colombian court documents. A federal
prosecutor there on Thursday presented formal evidence against Álvarez, who was
arrested last September and has been held on weapons smuggling charges.
In more than 1,000 pages of court filings and transcripts,
prosecutors allege Álvarez arranged for the delivery of 26 imported assault
rifles, along with battle gear, helmets and night-vision goggles. It is not
clear how the firearms got in the country.
They built their case against Álvarez, who went by the nom
de guerre Alex, with testimony from a hired driver, Jorge Molinares, who claims
he was unwittingly ferrying arms to an area where Venezuelan army deserters
were training for their coup effort.
Molinares said he was paid 400,000 pesos, or about $110, by
Álvarez to drive suitcases from the Colombian city of Barranquilla to the
Riohacha region. When stopped by police, Molinares called Álvarez via WhatsApp
on the Miami cellphone number to alert that he’d been stopped and police found
weapons, according to court records. He testified that Álvarez told him to
offer the police three million pesos, about $825, to make the matter go away
and then blocked his calls. An officer who stopped Molinares said Álvarez
offered him and the driver each three million pesos.
The allegations add to the intrigue surrounding Álvarez, 40,
who, according to court records, had 11 bank cards, IDs from Colombia,
Venezuela and Spain and nearly $10,000 in cash.
Alvarez’s lawyer, Alejandro Carranza, told the Miami Herald
he would comment at a later time on the allegations and evidence provided by
the Colombian prosecutor’s office but earlier posed questions concerning the
authorities handling of an alleged member of the plot, Jimmy Montesinos, who
had been detained and released twice.
Carranza said Montesinos had been caught carrying more than
30 cellphones and other equipment that he admitted was destined for use by the
Venezuelan military insurgents training near the Venezuelan border before the
coup was launched. Carranza said that Montesinos’ arrest is part of an
accretion of evidence that the Colombian government had prior knowledge of the
plot.
In an exclusive interview from jail late last year with the
Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, Álvarez proclaimed her innocence and said she
is being made a scapegoat by Colombian authorities embarrassed by the failed
coup launched from their country. She said she participated in planning
meetings that Colombia knew about. Her lawyer has said she cooperated with the
FBI and Colombian authorities before her arrest.
Denying taking part in the coup, Álvarez insists she was
just a translator for a former Venezuelan major general named Cliver Alcalá
Cordones and ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, whose Florida company Silvercorp
USA was training and organizing the coup plotters.
Early last year, the U.S. State Department offered a $10
million reward for the capture of Alcalá, alleging he was part of a Venezuelan
government drug smuggling ring. He surrendered in March 2020 in Barranquilla
and was quickly extradited. Early this year, during U.S. court proceedings,
U.S. prosecutors revealed he faces another probe in the United States.
Alcalá’s surrender followed a radio interview where he said
the weapons seized in what now is the Álvarez prosecution were his doing, on
behalf of the Venezuelan people who sought liberation from the Maduro regime.
For reasons still unclear, despite Alcalá’s extradition the
coup effort continued and culminated in May with the incursion that led to the
slaughter of the first wave of self-described liberators. Goudreau was featured
in a joint investigation by the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald and McClatchy
that detailed how the coup came about with the knowledge of some in or tied to
the Trump administration.
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