“He lived totally cloistered, without going outside or sticking his head out the window, and always protected by trusted people.” So he spent his days in Spain the detainee Hugo Carvajal, Known as the ‘Chicken’.
The details of the operation, by a handful of agents, were released this Thursday Spanish police after the arrest of this former Chavista general, who was head of intelligence in Venezuela.
(In context: Carvajal, a fugitive from justice, is arrested in Spain)
On Carvajal weighs a demand for extradition to the United States for alleged drug trafficking activities. The former Venezuelan spy chief was on the run after a Spanish court approved the extradition order in 2019.
Precisely in November 2019, there was an operation to arrest him, but the police could not find him and his lawyer said he did not know his whereabouts. The ‘Chicken’ holds the key to many secrets of Chavismo, So his arrest is key.
Former Venezuelan General Hugo Armando Carvajal, who was head of counterintelligence with Hugo Chávez, during his arrival in Spain in 2019.
Victor Lerena. EFE
What are the secrets that the ‘Chicken’ keeps?
Carvajal has been in the spotlight of the United States for years because of the suspicions that weigh on him for having allegedly participated in drug trafficking activities with the former Colombian guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
(You may be interested: Who is Hugo Carvajal, what is he accused of and his relationship with Maduro)
A New York court charged Carvajal in 2011 with coordinating the shipment of 5.6 tons of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006, before reaching its final destination on U.S. territory.
He lived completely cloistered, without going outside or sticking his head out the window, and always protected by trusted people
He also reproached him for having provided “protection, with heavily armed agents, at hours of drug boats.” For these alleged crimes, Carvajal could be sentenced to ten years in prison, U.S. justice has indicated.
According to an affidavit from an agent of the US anti-drug agency DEA, included in the documentation provided by that country, Carvajal was part of an alleged cartel that sought to “flood the United States with cocaine.”
The organization, christened as poster of the Suns, Would have been led by high-ranking Chavismo officials, including Chávez himself, who died in 2013 after 14 years in power; the Vice President of Economy, Tareck El Aissami, And the former president of the Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello.
(In context: Hugo Carvajal breaks the silence: he talks about his extradition case)
According to this statement, the alleged cartel has been operating at least since 1999 and was coordinated with the FARC. In this framework, Carvajal would have been in charge of “the provision of heavily armed security to protect these shipments of drugs” from Venezuela to the United States, according to the DEA agent.
Why did Carvajal distance himself from Chavismo?
Carvajal was insulted by the regime of Nicolás Maduro after having publicly supported the opponent Joan Guaidó, When he self-proclaimed president of Venezuela in February 2019. Then, he went by boat to the Dominican Republic and then flew to Spain.
What does the former Chavista spy chief say?
In an interview in 2019 on New York News, Carvajal denied having been involved in drug trafficking matters and alleged that he had repeatedly reported suspicious shipments of cocaine to senior officials, who ignored him.
He also assured the American newspaper that he had only been in contact with the former guerrilla to negotiate the release of a kidnapped Venezuelan businessman.
In September 2019, the Spanish National High Court rejected the extradition request to the United States on the grounds that it was being claimed for “political motivation” and ordered the release of Carvajal, who had been remanded in custody since d ‘April.
This decision was challenged by US authorities and Spanish magistrates rectified and accepted the lawsuit in November 2019, but the suspect had fled. So far re-captured.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
* With information from AFP
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