Spain Arrests Former Venezuela Spy Chief Accused of Drug Trafficking
MADRID — Police in Madrid on Thursday arrested a former
Venezuelan spymaster wanted on U.S. narcoterrorism charges, capturing him in a
hideout apartment nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order
and disappeared.
Gen. Hugo Carvajal, who for over a decade was late
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s eyes and ears in the Venezuelan military, was
arrested in the small apartment in which he had been holed up.
“He lived totally enclosed, never going outside or getting
close to the window, always protected by people he trusted,” Spain’s police
said in a statement on social media in which they posted a short video the
moment heavily-armed officers put handcuffs on Carvajal.
Spain’s leftist government last year approved Carvajal’s
extradition to the U.S., where he faces federal charges for allegedly working
with guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to “flood” the
U.S. with cocaine.
The extradition order followed a back-and-forth legal battle
in which Spain’s National Court reversed an earlier ruling by a high court
magistrate throwing out the U.S. warrant for being politically motivated. In
the interim, Carvajal was released and never heard from again except when he
said last year that he was going underground to protest what he viewed as
political interference in his case.
He resurfaced on social media earlier this month, posting
with little notice what could be a preview of his eventual defense: a statement
accusing former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who was for years the U.S.′
main caretaker in the war on drugs, of “fabricating” evidence against him and
the Chávez government even as it was cooperating with U.S. prosecutors to
arrest Colombian narcos hiding inside Venezuela
“It’s a lie that will eventually collapse,” Carvajal wrote.
“I’ve always trusted that the truth will prevail.”
It’s not clear when Carvajal could be sent to the U.S. But
his extradition may be slowed down by an asylum request he previously submitted
to Spanish authorities.
“I’m prepared for either situation, the good or the bad,”
Carvajal’s wife, Angélica Flores, told The Associated Press when contacted by
phone with the news. “It’s up to him and others to give statements. This case
will continue and we’ll see how it ends.”
Nicknamed “El Pollo” (“The Chicken”), Carvajal has bete
noire of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for over a decade.
First indicted in 2011, he narrowly escaped extradition when
he was arrested in Aruba in 2014 while serving as Venezuela’s consul general to
the Dutch Caribbean island. President Nicolás Maduro’s government successfully
applied pressure on Aruba, which sits just miles off Venezuela’s coast, to
release Carvajal and when it did he received a hero’s welcome upon his return
to Caracas.
But he was never a confidant of Maduro and in the
complicated internal politics of Venezuela’s ruling socialist party was
relegated to a minor role as a backbench parliamentarian.
In 2019, after opposition leader Juan Guaidó led a street
uprising and quickly won the U.S.′ recognition as Venezuela’s legitimate
leader, Carvajal then openly rejected the government, urging members of the
military to break with Maduro.
While on the run, both from the DEA and Maduro, Carvajal
traveled to the Spanish capital from the Dominican Republic under a disguised
identity. He was greeted at Madrid’s airport by two Spanish intelligence
officials, the AP has previously reported.
From Europe, Carvajal had hoped to leverage contacts and
knowledge of the Venezuelan deep state to mount a military-backed rebellion
against Maduro.
But to the frustration of many in Venezuela’s opposition who
have secretly tried to flip senior members of the military, he was arrested on
the U.S. warrant days before a failed barracks rebellion on April 30, 2019.
There was no immediate comment from Maduro’s government.
The case against Carvajal in New York centers on a DC-9 jet
from Caracas that landed in southern Mexico in 2006 with 5.6 tons of cocaine
packed into 128 suitcases. Carvajal said that judicial probes in Venezuela and
Mexico never linked him to the incident and that the alleged plane owner backs
his alibi.
But he faces incriminating evidence from phone records, drug
ledgers and the testimony of at least 10 witnesses, according to an affidavit
from a DEA special agent. Those witnesses include members and associates of the
“Cartel of the Suns,” former high-ranking Venezuelan officials, according to the
affidavit.
The U.S. indictment also repeats an accusation that Carvajal
provided Colombian rebels with weapons and protection inside Venezuela.
The former general has scoffed at the allegations. He says
his contacts with the FARC — designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization
— were authorized by Chávez and limited to securing the release of a kidnapped
Venezuelan businessman and paving the way for peace talks with the Colombian
government.
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