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A client of mine was busted on Aruba for drug trafficking!

Whitewing

Well-known member
:lol:

Now, first let me be clear that I never met this dude. He owned a huge ranch across the road from another huge ranch owned by a buddy of mine named Jesus Otaola.

I'd always heard the place was owned by "the general" but was never there when he was....if he ever was. The guy in charge of the place, a Colombian, bought bales from me for a couple of years while they were establishing pasture for their cattle.

Here's the story as it broke today:

CARACAS, Venezuela—A former chief of Venezuelan military intelligence, accused by the U.S. of cocaine trafficking and collaborating with Colombian Marxist rebels, was detained in Aruba at the American government's behest, officials in the Caribbean island and the U.S. said on Thursday.

Hugo Carvajal, a retired military general who was awaiting confirmation as President Nicolás Maduro's consul-general to Aruba, is the highest-ranking Venezuelan official to be arrested on a U.S. warrant.

The detention stands to deepen already strained ties between the U.S. and Venezuela, which has frequently accused Washington of vilifying Venezuelan officials as drug traffickers and plotting to overthrow its government.

A team of investigators in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District in New York worked to build the case against Mr. Carvajal, who they allege helped traffickers bring drugs into the U.S.

"Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been investigating Carvajal for drug trafficking and other crimes for more than a year," said an official familiar with the case.

A former Colombian official who also knows about the allegations against Mr. Carvajal said the U.S. is investigating other Venezuelan officials for allegedly helping traffickers smuggle drugs into the U.S. and collaborating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"This is pretty significant," said Myles Frechette, a former American diplomat in Venezuela with extensive experience in Latin America. "Obviously, this was done with lots of planning in advance. I'm sure the U.S. had gone through all the friendly countries in the Caribbean to say, 'If this guy shows, he's wanted for narco-trafficking.' And he fell into the trap."

Mr. Carvajal was in a police lockup in Aruba on Thursday evening and unable to comment. In the past, he has denied U.S. government accusations of wrongdoing. The Venezuelan government called for his release, saying that Mr. Carvajal's detention was unlawful and warning that tiny Aruba, which is just 17 miles away, could suffer economic consequences.

Mr. Carvajal had long been targeted by American and Colombian investigators for what they called his active role in shipping Colombian cocaine through Venezuela and on to the U.S.

In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department put him on a blacklist that prohibited any American entity from doing business with him, alleging that he had protected FARC drug shipments and provided the rebel group with weapons and logistical help. The State Department has classified the FARC as a terrorist group, and many of its leaders are wanted in the U.S.

Part of the purported evidence against Mr. Carvajal, as well as two other high-ranking Venezuelan officials blacklisted by the Treasury Department, had come from messages and memos that Colombia's government said that its commandos found in computer hard drives they recovered from a FARC camp after they bombed it.

In one 2007 missive by the FARC's Luciano Marín, the rebel commander recounted how Mr. Carvajal would be delivering "very powerful bazookas," what intelligence officials believed were rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Documents found in the computer hard drives also purport to show how Mr. Carvajal provided rebel leaders with an Israeli sniper rifle, ammunition and a box of Russian grenades.

According to the files, which were viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Carvajal also urged the FARC, which also operates inside Venezuela, to stop indiscriminately kidnapping Venezuelan citizens. He suggested that his government could help the FARC find suitable targets among Venezuela's elites.

Venezuelan government officials, as well as the FARC, said that the documents were forged by Colombian intelligence officials. But an Interpol investigation found no evidence of tampering after studying the computer hard drives, and rebel deserters backed up many of the allegations.

In 2011, the U.S. added a top Venezuelan general, two lawmakers and a leading intelligence official to the Treasury blacklist, also accusing them of drug smuggling and assisting the FARC.

Mr. Carvajal, a wiry former general who was a top aide to former President Hugo Chávez, was detained Wednesday night by the authorities at the Queen Beatrix International Airport in Oranjestad, Aruba, which is part of the Netherlands.

In its statement about the case, Venezuela's foreign ministry said the government "energetically rejects the illegal and arbitrary detention of the Venezuelan diplomatic official." Venezuela also characterized the arrest of Mr. Carvajal by Dutch authorities as a violation of a 1961 international convention governing diplomatic relations.

"The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela issues a firm call for the Kingdom of the Netherlands to rectify this unjust and unfair act," the statement said.

Aruba Prosecutor Peter Blanken told local media on the island that the U.S. had requested Mr. Carvajal's arrest on July 4.

Mr. Carvajal, whose nickname is "el Pollo," or "the Chicken," carries a diplomatic passport, but doesn't have diplomatic immunity because he hasn't been confirmed as consul general, said Ann Angela, spokeswoman for Aruba's prosecutor general's office. She declined to give details on why the arrest order was carried out now, citing privacy concerns.

The U.S. plans to formally solicit extradition, but the process is expected to take time, a U.S. official said. The State Department has 60 days to make an official request, Ms. Angela said.

The U.S. and the Netherlands work closely together on counterdrug operations, patrolling the Caribbean and targeting suspected kingpins.

Douglas Farah, president of Takoma Park, Md.-based IBI Consultants, which works with governments and private foundations on researching drugs and arms trafficking, said that American investigators may be interested in asking Mr. Carvajal about details of the inner workings of alleged Venezuelan government ties to trafficking organizations.

Mr. Farah, who has testified about drug trafficking before the U.S. Congress, said the U.S. missed such an opportunity when in 2010 Colombia arrested Walid Makled, an alleged drug kingpin, and turned him over to Mr. Chávez's government.

In March 2011, before being sent to Venezuela, Mr. Makled, in a televised interview with Univision, said he routinely paid off Venezuelan military officials to move his drugs around the country. "For example, I used to give a weekly fee of 200 million bolívares (about $50,000 at the time), and 100 million was for General Hugo Carvajal," Mr. Makled said. His allegations about Mr. Carvajal's role in trafficking was backed by a U.S. intelligence document.

"What the U.S. is probably hoping," Mr. Farah said of Mr. Carvajal's arrest, "is that this could open a significant window and to unlock the relationships the Venezuelan government has with other groups."

Officials at Venezuela's information and foreign ministries couldn't be reached for comment.

Mr. Carvajal met with prosecutors on Thursday, and will face a judge on Friday who will determine whether his detention complies with international treaties, Ms. Angela said.

The U.S. Treasury's blacklist often targets suspected major narcotics traffickers and terrorist organizations. Under the designation, any assets Mr. Carvajal owned in the U.S. would have been frozen.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/retired-venezuelan-general-hugo-carvajal-detained-on-u-s-petition-1406227366

Attention OT: Please note the bolded part. This is probably an excellent opportunity for you to drop a dime on me with the feds, you fat, low-life weasel.
 
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