Category Archives: Drug Cartels

We Have Another Soros DA in Los Angeles County

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No more deportations…..

As part of the Los Angeles City Charter:

Sec. 215. Oath of Office.

Every officer provided for in the Charter shall, before entering upon the discharge of the duties of office, take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Charter of the City of Los Angeles, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of (here inserting the name of the office) according to the best of my ability.”

On first day, L.A. County D.A. George Gascón eliminates bail - Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES (CN) — On his first day on the job as Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor, George Gascón says the district attorney’s office will no longer ask for cash bail for nonviolent felony charges, seek the death penalty or charge children as adults.

Gascón, the former San Francisco DA, unseated Jackie Lacey last month in a closely watched race that pitted an incumbent prosecutor against a reform challenger.

He was sworn in Monday and promised to “change course and implement a system of justice that will enhance our safety and humanity” as he takes the helm of one of the nation’s largest prosecutor’s offices.

“Today we are confronting the lie that stripping entire communities of their liberties somehow made us safer — and we’re doing it with science, research, and data,” Gascón said in a statement. “For decades those who profit off incarceration have used their enormous political influence — cloaked in the false veil of safety — to scare the public and our elected officials into backing racist policies that created more victims, destroyed budgets and shattered our moral compass. That lie and the harm it caused ends now.”

The turning tide promised by Gascón garnered an immediate reaction from law enforcement representatives. The LA Police Protective League, a union representing local police officers, called Gascón’s ending of cash bail “disturbing” and said pushing LA County into the progressive direction San Francisco followed would be “disastrous.”

“The new DA talks a good game, but his plans will do nothing but further victimize” LA County residents including people of color, the police union said in a statement.

The police union did not immediately respond to news that the DA’s office will form a board to review deadly police shootings going back to 2012, which is when Lacey first took office. The University of California, Irvine, criminal justice clinic said it assist the board.

Gascón, a Cuban-born immigrant, served as an assistant police chief with the LAPD and then police chief in Mesa, Arizona, before serving as police chief in San Francisco from 2009 to 2011.

He was appointed as San Francisco DA by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom to fill the vacancy left by Kamala Harris when she was elected as California attorney general.

Gascón’s pull toward LA County was in part encouraged by local activists who sought a candidate to challenge Lacey, including the Black Lives Matter-LA chapter.

The DA race played out amidst a backdrop of demands across the country for criminal justice reform over the murder of unarmed Black people.

For the last three years, local activists rallied outside Lacey’s downtown offices to demand an audience with her to discuss the killing of unarmed Black and brown civilians by police. Families whose loved ones were killed by police also wanted to know why the DA’s office was unwilling to bring charges against police over the shootings of unarmed people.

Under Lacey’s command, the DA office only brought charges against one police officer in the shooting death of a driver who fled during a traffic stop.

In a letter addressed to LA County police officers, Gascón said during his career as a police officer and then DA he’s “become a fierce advocate for good policing for largely the same reasons I seek to hold bad police accountable. It’s not simply because I believe Black Lives Matter, or because of the oath I will take today to uphold the Constitution and ensure equal justice under the law.”

He said problem officers severely hinder law enforcement’s standing in the community.

“We are all scarred by their misdeeds, leading many in our communities to perceive police as persecutors instead of protectors,” said Gascón.

In a tweet Gascón wrote, “40 years ago I walked my first beat as a young police officer. Today, I was sworn in as the 43rd District Attorney of Los Angeles.”

His campaign and win is widely viewed as an indictment of Lacey’s role as a prosecutor who did not change fast enough for a county of 10 million that sought a more progressive approach to criminal justice.

Lacey, the first Black prosecutor and first woman to hold the office, conceded the race to Gascón last month. He won roughly 2 million votes to Lacey’s 1.7 million, according to the county’s election results.

Along with doing away cash bail, Gascón said his office would ensure a better response to reach out to victims of sexual assault, will stop charging low-level offenses connected to poverty, addiction, mental illness and homelessness, according to a statement from his transition team.

His office will also emphasize resentencing for people convicted of nonviolent crimes and are deemed low risk or those with records of rehabilitation.

***

In October, Gascon’s campaign released a detailed plan that would use the power of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office to help criminal illegal aliens avoid arrest and deportation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

As part of the plan, Gascon has proposed factoring in “severe collateral consequences in charging decisions, plea negotiations, and use of diversion programs” for criminal illegal aliens so as to avoid arrest and deportation by ICE.

“Local criminal justice actors must be careful not to become part of a pipeline to deportation in a dysfunctional immigration system … the DA must also strive to limit unnecessary exposure to immigration enforcement,” Gascon’s plan continues:

Immigration status can have a disproportionate adverse impact on noncitizen defendants because of federal immigration law implications. A core duty of prosecutors is to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. As such, it is incumbent upon the prosecutor to be aware of and mitigate collateral consequences, particularly when they are more severe than the punishment for the crime itself. Indeed, in Padilla v. Kentucky 130 S.Ct. 1473 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that immigration consequences of a conviction for immigrants can be profound and warrant consideration by the prosecution as well as the defense. [Emphasis added]

…

An immigration-informed approach includes working with defense attorneys to obtain a defendant’s immigration status–without requiring onerous proof or documentation – and implementing training programs to increase awareness of immigration law, with the goal of equipping prosecutors to exercise discretion in achieving immigration-neutral charges and plea bargaining. The basic principle guiding this approach is that the full range of punitive consequences – both direct and collateral–should be roughly equivalent for citizen and noncitizen offenders. [Emphasis added]

Likewise, Gascon has proposed reducing “prosecution of low-level, ‘quality of life’ offenses” such as drug possession, driving without a license, and public urination, so that illegal aliens who are arrested for these crimes do not face what Gascon deems “outsized immigration ramifications, due to the booking and fingerprint sharing between local law enforcement and immigration authorities following an arrest.”

Even further, Gascon plans to “limit exposure to immigration enforcement” for criminal illegal aliens by reducing jail-time so that suspects are booked and almost immediately released. More here from Breitbart.

Chicago Gangs Form Pact to Shoot Cops on Sight

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Primer: 30 Gangs could equal up to 80,000 members. For a snapshot of gang activity in Chicago since the 60’s, go here.

The FBI alert, headlined “Pact Made by People Nation Gang Factions to ‘Shoot On-Site’ Any Police Officer with a Weapon Drawn” lists street gangs that have become well-known in Chicago the past five decades, from the Latin Kings and Vice Lords to the El Rukns and Black P Stones.

Latin Kings Profile Latin Kings

Almighty Vice Lord Nation Vice Lords

***

A federal intelligence alert from the FBI field office in Chicago, Ill., warned that about 30 gangs in the city have made a pact to shoot police officers if they draw their weapons in public, ABC 7 reported on Monday.

Intelligence alerts are frequently distributed to law enforcement officials, especially if the alerts involve threats to an officer’s safety. This particular alert was based on “a contact whose reporting is limited and whose reliability cannot be determined,” meaning a street source, witness, or information obtained through surveillance.

The alert states that Chicago gangs have agreed to “shoot on-sight any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public.”

“Members of these gang factions have been actively searching for, and filming, police officers in performance of their official duties,” the alert continues. “The purpose of which is to catch on film an officer drawing his/her weapon on any subject and the subsequent ‘shoot on-sight’ of said officer, in order to garner national media attention.”

In early August, mobs of people staged what appeared to be a coordinated spate of looting and vandalism at Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, a stretch of high-end businesses in the city’s downtown. The looting occurred after police shot and arrested a suspect in the Englewood neighborhood. The looting was reportedly prompted by a rumor, which went viral on social media, that the cops had shot and killed a child, when in fact they had injured a 20-year-old man.

Chicago has seen a rise in murders and shootings since the death of George Floyd earlier this year, a surge in violence likely compounded by economic dislocation caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a rise in anti-police sentiment, which has reportedly led police in many cities to adopt less aggressive tactics. There were 2,749 shooting victims in the city as of Monday, up 917 from the same period last year.

Chicago police superintendent David Brown, who started his position several weeks before the Floyd protests, said on Monday that “a sense of lawlessness” has been observed by officers on the street. Brown also noted that the dangers for officers have dramatically increased.

“I think 51 officers being shot at or shot in one year, I think that quadruples any previous year in Chicago’s history,” Brown said. “So I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops.”

***

According to ABC7, which obtained a copy of the report, the “situational information report” from the FBI in Chicago from last Wednesday states that “members of these gang factions have been actively searching for, and filming, police officers in performance of their official duties. The purpose of which is to catch on film an officer drawing his/her weapon on any subject and the subsequent ‘shoot on-sight’ of said officer, in order to garner national media attention.”

Though it is not uncommon to alert officers of any kind of potential threat that may risk the safety of police, CPD Superintendent David Brown said the city has seen an overall “sense of lawlessness” and that the threat of danger to police is on the rise.

“I think it’s bigger than a suggestion,” Brown said. “I think 51 officers being shot at or shot in one year, I think that quadruples any previous year in Chicago’s history. So I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops.”

The recent alert, headlined “Pact Made by People Nation Gang Factions to ‘Shoot On-Site’ Any Police Officer with a Weapon Drawn,” lists street gangs that have been active and well-known in the Chicago area for the past five decades.

Italian Police Seize $1 Billion of ISIS Amphetamines

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The Guardia di Finanza said that markings on the drugs were consistent with those used by Islamic State (IS). Though the amphetamine has been linked to IS in the past, some experts doubted that IS had the capacity to produce drugs in such quantities, and stated that Syrian pro-regime entities were more likely responsible.

Police just made history's biggest drug seizure: 15 tons ...

IN: Police in Italy have announced the seizure of the largest shipment of amphetamines in counter-narcotics history, containing drugs believed to have been manufactured by the Islamic State in Syria. The drugs shipment was intercepted at the port of Salerno, located south of Naples in southwestern Italy.

 

Italian police announced on Wednesday that it had made “the largest seizure of amphetamines in the world”, both in terms of quantity and street value. The latter is estimated at approximately $1 billion. Drug traffickers are rarely known to transport such large volumes of drugs in a single shipment, due to the risk of capture by the authorities. However, the lack of supply in Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic has prompted suppliers to take unusual risks, according to experts.

The amphetamines —approximately 84 million tablets— were found hidden inside three containers filled with paper cylinders. More pills had been placed inside the hollow parts of agricultural machinery products, according to police. The confiscated tablets are marked with the logo for the drug Captagon, which is better known by its genetic name, Fenethylline. Captagon was a popular drug in the Middle East in the 1990s, and today amphetamines produced by the Islamic State bear its logo, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

The drug is regularly given to Islamic State volunteers prior to battles and terrorist attacks, in order to help reduce their inhibitions, including susceptibility to fear, and to prevent them from feeling physical pain. Security agencies in the Middle East refer to the substance as “the jihad drug”. It is particularly prevalent in Syria, which has become the global leader in the production of illicit amphetamines in the past decade.

Italian police said the shipment was most likely intended for distribution by “a consortium of criminal groups”, who would then traffic the substance to illicit markets across Europe. It would be unthinkable for a single distributor to be able to afford a $1 billion single purchase, according to officials. The largest buyer among these distributors was probably the Camorra —the organized crime syndicate based in the region of Naples. The Camorra has international links through which it can channel the illicit drugs in much larger volumes than other crime syndicates, according to experts.

Asked about the clues that led to the seizure of the amphetamines, a spokesman for the Italian police said the force knew the when the shipment was coming in, due to “ongoing investigations we have with the Camorra”. He added, “we intercepted phone calls and members, so we knew what to expect”.

Mexico Comes Demanding Documents of Fast and Furious, Now?

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MEXICO CITY, May 11 (Reuters) – Mexico’s foreign minister on Monday posted a video online detailing a diplomatic note to the U.S. embassy requesting answers about a gun-running sting under the Obama presidency, keeping a spotlight on the controversial issue.

Live: Trump threatens tariffs on Mexico over immigration ...

In the video, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard cited former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as saying Mexican authorities knew about the 2009-2011 scheme known as ‘Fast and Furious.’

Representatives for Holder did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Nor did the U.S. embassy in Mexico City.

It was the first time Ebrard or President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had made direct reference by name to a key U.S. figure connected to the program since the issue resurfaced in Mexico a week ago.

In a bid to curb cross-border gun smuggling, the U.S. scheme allowed people to illegally buy arms in the United States and take them to Mexico so that the weapons could be tracked and lead law enforcement officials to crime bosses. Some of those guns were subsequently blamed for the fatal shootings of both Mexican and U.S. citizens.

The current Mexican government has zeroed in on the program to highlight possible corruption under previous Mexican administrations amid a debate over how much they knew about the U.S. operation.

Holder, who served as U.S. Attorney General under Barack Obama between 2009 and 2015, had previously issued a statement via the U.S. embassy in Mexico contending that “Mexican authorities” knew about the program, Ebrard said.

“The (Mexican) government requests that it be provided with all the information available regarding the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation,” Ebrard said in the video posted on Twitter.

Lopez Obrador first brought up the gun-running program last Monday when answering questions about Genaro Garcia Luna, a former Mexican security minister who was arrested in the United States in December on drug trafficking offenses.

Garcia Luna served under former President Felipe Calderon from 2006-12, spearheading a crackdown on drug cartels. Lopez Obrador has used his arrest to argue that corruption was rampant in past Mexican governments.

Some critics of Lopez Obrador contend that he has done U.S. President Donald Trump a favor by raising questions about Garcia Luna as the U.S president prepares to fight a November election against Joe Biden, who was vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Obama.

Lopez Obrador’s supporters say he has focused on the issue to illustrate hypocrisy among his domestic adversaries.

Calderon, a longstanding political rival of Lopez Obrador, said last week there was no agreement between Mexico and the United States to permit illicit entry of arms.

‘Fast and Furious’ followed earlier sting operations that began under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. (Reporting by Drazen Jorgic and Sharay Angulo; Editing by Dave Graham and Jane Wardell)

****  Judge rules DOJ must share documents from Fast and Furious ... photo

Americans paying attention to the unresolved Obama era scandals would like to know all the truth too. So as a refresher, here is the last status of the investigation.

May, 2016:

JS: Last week, Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued an important opinion in Oversight Committee v. Lynch, the subpoena enforcement litigation related to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. Media outlets generally reported it as a win for Congress and loss for the Executive. In an acute sense, that is true — Judge Jackson ordered the Justice Department to produce sensitive materials that reflect deliberations about how to respond to congressional requests and media inquiries. However, the opinion is a much more complicated ruling that reinforces some longstanding executive branch legal arguments that Congress has perennially disputed. In the longer term, this opinion may actually be a win for the executive branch, despite being ordered to hand over documents the President designated as privileged.

Background

The case arose from DOJ’s refusal to turn over to Congress a number of disputed documents pursuant to President Obama’s formal assertion of executive privilege. The underlying congressional investigation sought information related to failed gun trafficking investigations led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that came to be collectively referred to as Operation Fast and Furious. Starting during the fall of 2009, ATF agents in Arizona began setting up a series of sting operations targeting gunrunners who were moving large quantities of firearms across the Mexico border. But, inadequate surveillance, technology failures, and poor judgment led ATF to allow many of the guns it was using in the stings to “walk.” A number of those lost weapons ended up in the hands of drug cartels and showed up at various crime scenes on both sides of the US-Mexico border, including at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Just last week, within days of Judge Jackson’s opinion, news outlets reported that one of the guns at issue in Operation Fast and Furious was found at El Chapo’s hideout.

However, the document dispute has very little to do with the allegations about ATF’s problematic investigative tactics. With the exception of a few documents related to wiretaps, grand jury materials, and confidential information in open investigative files, Congress received almost all of the underlying documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Instead, the most significant dispute in the case relates to Congress’s allegation that DOJ officials lied to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in February 2011. Congress then aggressively sought all documents related to the Department’s communications and deliberations about how to respond to the congressional investigation and media inquiries, for before and long after the alleged misrepresentation to Grassley. The administration eventually accommodated the Committee by providing access to all the documents that had led to providing Grassley inaccurate information. Those documents demonstrated good faith but a lack of diligence by responsible officials in both Phoenix and Washington, DC. However, Congress forged ahead with a sprawling meta-investigation that raised significant institutional concerns within the Executive about the collapse of “separation” in the separation of powers. (At that time, I was Associate Counsel to the President and was involved in White House negotiations with the Oversight Committee over various congressional requests related to Operation Fast and Furious.) The document stalemate served as the primary basis for a House vote of contempt of Congress against then-Attorney General Eric Holder in June 2012. That same month, the House authorized this civil enforcement lawsuit.

Short-Term Loss for the Executive

At the top line, last week Judge Jackson ordered DOJ to produce all the documents it had designated as protected by the deliberative process privilege. In the absence of an appellate reversal, the Oversight Committee will obtain its prize: some 5,342 unique documents reflecting executive branch deliberations about how to respond to a hostile congressional committee and how to respond to media requests. To be sure, the Committee will seek to make hay of those deliberations and any impolitic remarks they contain.

DOJ had argued the production of documents revealing deliberations about how to respond to Congress would chill fulsome responses to Congress. The court quotes DOJ’s longstanding position that disclosure “would inhibit the candor of such Executive Branch deliberations in the future and significantly impair the Executive Branch’s ability to respond independently and effectively to congressional oversight.” I have previously argued that branch independence is critical in response to oversight requests.

Judge Jackson’s order relies on her holding that Congress’s oversight need outweighs DOJ’s confidentiality interest on the facts in this record. Specifically, she suggests the need for deliberations to be confidential was substantially weakened by prior subject matter disclosures by the public report of DOJ’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). She finds “whatever incremental harm that could flow from providing the Committee with the records that have already been publicly disclosed is outweighed by the unchallenged need for the material.”

Ironically, DOJ has long relied on the OIG report to bolster its argument that Congress could obtain the information elsewhere, which is one of the factors to be considered in the leading DC Circuit opinion on privilege, In re Sealed Case (Espy).

The court’s analysis seems to suggest that an executive branch entity must challenge the legitimacy of Congress’s investigative interests at the categorical subject-matter level rather than at the incremental request level. By characterizing Congress’s interest as an “unchallenged need,” Judge Jackson uses DOJ’s ready concession that Congress had legitimate oversight interests in problematic gun trafficking investigations against it. DOJ didn’t challenge Congress’s investigation as illegitimate, but it certainly argued that Congress has almost no legitimate interest in peering into DOJ’s process of drafting letters to Congress. At the individual request level, DOJ vigorously challenges Congress’s need. The opinion reflects a court that appears to have prudential concerns about assigning relative values to inherently political determinations about the needs and interests of coordinate branches.

However, oversight disputes do not play out at the categorical level. They play out in the give-and-take of phone calls, letter requests, subpoenas, media availabilities, depositions, and transcribed interviews. Further, unlike judicial proceedings, there are no referees, protective orders, evidentiary rules, or motions to quash during that investigative process. By the time an interbranch dispute reaches the courts, all of those fights have happened and positions have hardened. A categorical approach is a meat axe where a scalpel is needed.

That is why I took some issue with the court’s prior ruling that that the matter is justiciable. To me, justiciability requires judicious review of the reasonableness of requests, the chilling effect of a particular disclosure, and the incremental nature of harms. So, as I wrote in October 2013:

If a court is going to resolve an important dispute between Congress and the President, wouldn’t congressional need, withholding grounds, and accommodation alternatives be the essential inquiry? … The notion that the underlying facts about controversial ATF investigative tactics have come to light and remedied should bear on analysis of Congress’s need to intrude on Executive Branch deliberations.

Likely of little solace to the executive branch, Judge Jackson cabined her rationale to “the specific and unique circumstances of this case.” In addition, the court specifically noted that its “ruling is not predicated on a finding that the withholding was intended to cloak wrongdoing on the part of government officials or that the withholding itself was improper.”

Longer-Term Win for the Executive

Of more comfort to DOJ, Judge Jackson has now ruled in favor of the Executive Branch, and against Congress, on the two most contested issues that are likely to have enduring precedential effect.

First, as I have discussed previously, the court’s August 2014 ruling held the Executive Branch may assert a deliberative process privilege in response to a congressional subpoena. Congress had argued that the deliberative process privilege was grounded in common law alone and therefore inapplicable to a separation-of-powers dispute. In Judge Jackson’s prior opinion, “the Court reject[ed] the Committee’s suggestion that the only privilege the executive can invoke in response to a subpoena is the Presidential communications privilege.”

Second, in last week’s opinion, Judge Jackson specifically held that the deliberative process privilege also applies to deliberations about how to respond to media inquiries or congressional requests. Congress had argued that the privilege is confined exclusively to policy deliberations. Rejecting that argument, the opinion notes “the Court holds that documents withheld by defendant that reveal the Department’s internal deliberations about how to respond to press and Congressional inquiries into Operation Fast and Furious are protected by the deliberative process privilege.”

As a practical matter that protection dissolved in the face of the court’s prior disclosure and incremental harm analysis. But the holding is a significant doctrinal win for the Executive branch. Many DOJ attorneys will have an impulse to appeal this ruling in order to shield the ordered disclosures, but perhaps the executive branch’s two substantial legal victories will caution against it.

 

Nicolás Maduro,14 Other Officials Charged with Narco-Terrorism, Corruption

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Venezuelan Officials Say President Nicolás Maduro Is ...  source
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Nicolás Maduro Moros and 14 Current and Former Venezuelan Officials Charged with Narco-Terrorism, Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Criminal Charges
Maduro and Other High Ranking Venezuelan Officials Allegedly Partnered With the FARC to Use Cocaine as a Weapon to “Flood” the United States

Former President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela’s vice president for the economy, Venezuela’s Minister of Defense, and Venezuela’s Chief Supreme Court Justice are among those charged in New York City; Washington, DC; and Miami, along with current and former Venezuelan government officials as well as two Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) leaders, announced U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman of the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Southern District of Florida, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa D. Erichs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

“The Venezuelan regime, once led by Nicolás Maduro Moros, remains plagued by criminality and corruption,” said Attorney General Barr. “For more than 20 years, Maduro and a number of high-ranking colleagues allegedly conspired with the FARC, causing tons of cocaine to enter and devastate American communities. Today’s announcement is focused on rooting out the extensive corruption within the Venezuelan government – a system constructed and controlled to enrich those at the highest levels of the government. The United States will not allow these corrupt Venezuelan officials to use the U.S. banking system to move their illicit proceeds from South America nor further their criminal schemes.”

“Today we announce criminal charges against Nicolás Maduro Moros for running, together with his top lieutenants, a narco-terrorism partnership with the FARC for the past 20 years,” said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman. “The scope and magnitude of the drug trafficking alleged was made possible only because Maduro and others corrupted the institutions of Venezuela and provided political and military protection for the rampant narco-terrorism crimes described in our charges. As alleged, Maduro and the other defendants expressly intended to flood the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation. Maduro very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon. While Maduro and other cartel members held lofty titles in Venezuela’s political and military leadership, the conduct described in the Indictment wasn’t statecraft or service to the Venezuelan people. As alleged, the defendants betrayed the Venezuelan people and corrupted Venezuelan institutions to line their pockets with drug money.”

“Over the last decade, corrupt Venezuelan government officials have systematically looted Venezuela of billions of dollars,” said U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan. “Far too often, these corrupt officials and their co-conspirators have used South Florida banks and real estate to conceal and perpetuate their illegal activity. As the recent charges show, Venezuelan corruption and money laundering in South Florida extends to even the highest levels of Venezuela’s judicial system. In the last couple of years, the US Attorney’s Office in South Florida and its federal law enforcement partners have united to bring dozens of criminal charges against high-level regime officials and co-conspirators resulting in seizures of approximately $450 million dollars.”

“These indictments expose the devastating systemic corruption at the highest levels of Nicolas Maduro’s regime,” said DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon. “These officials repeatedly and knowingly betrayed the people of Venezuela, conspiring, for personal gain, with drug traffickers and designated foreign terrorist organizations like the FARC. Today’s actions send a clear message to corrupt officials everywhere that no one is above the law or beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. The Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration will continue to protect the American people from ruthless drug traffickers – no matter who they are or where they live.”

“The collaborative nature of this investigation is representative of the ongoing work HSI and international law enforcement agencies perform each day, often behind the scenes and unknown to the public, to make our communities safer and free from corruption,” said HSI’s Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa D. Erichs. “Today’s announcement highlights HSI’s global reach and commitment to aggressively identify, target and investigate individuals who violate U.S. laws, exploit financial systems, and hide behind cryptocurrency to further their illicit criminal activity. Let this indictment be a reminder that no one is above the law – not even powerful political officials.”

A four-count superseding indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) charges Nicolás Maduro Moros, 57; Diosdado Cabello Rondón, 56, head of Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly; Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios aka “El Pollo,” 59, former director of military intelligence; Clíver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, 58, former General in the Venezuelan armed forces; Luciano Marín Arango aka “Ivan Marquez,” 64, a member of the FARC’s Secretariat, which is the FARC’s highest leadership body; and Seuxis Paucis Hernández Solarte aka “Jesús Santrich,” 53, a member of the FARC’s Central High Command, which is the FARC’s second-highest leadership body. The case is pending before U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.

The U.S. Department of State, through its Narcotics Rewards Program, is offering rewards of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Maduro Moros, up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Cabello Rondón, Carvajal Barrios, and Alcalá Cordones, and up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Marín Arango.

Maduro Moros, Cabello Rondón, Carvajal Barrios, Alcalá Cordones, Marín Arango, and Hernández Solarte have each been charged with: (1) participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison; (2) conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, which carries a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison; (3) using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and possessing machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine-importation conspiracies, which carries a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison; and (4) conspiring to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and to possess machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine-importation conspiracies, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The potential mandatory minimum and maximum sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

According to the allegations contained in the superseding indictment, other court filings, and statements made during court proceedings:

Since at least 1999, Maduro Moros, Cabello Rondón, Carvajal Barrios and Alcalá Cordones, acted as leaders and managers of the Cártel de Los Soles, or “Cartel of the Suns.” The Cartel’s name refers to the sun insignias affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials. Maduro Moros and the other charged Cartel members abused the Venezuelan people and corrupted the legitimate institutions of Venezuela—including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary—to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States. The Cártel de Los Soles sought to not only enrich its members and enhance their power, but also to “flood” the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in the United States.

Marín Arango and Hernández Solarte are leaders of the FARC. Beginning in approximately 1999, while the FARC was purporting to negotiate toward peace with the Colombian government, FARC leaders agreed with leaders of the Cártel de Los Soles to relocate some of the FARC’s operations to Venezuela under the protection of the Cartel. Thereafter, the FARC and the Cártel de Los Soles dispatched processed cocaine from Venezuela to the United States via transshipment points in the Caribbean and Central America, such as Honduras. By approximately 2004, the U.S. Department of State estimated that 250 or more tons of cocaine were transiting Venezuela per year. The maritime shipments were shipped north from Venezuela’s coastline using go-fast vessels, fishing boats, and container ships. Air shipments were often dispatched from clandestine airstrips, typically made of dirt or grass, concentrated in the Apure State. According to the U.S. Department of State, approximately 75 unauthorized flights suspected of drug-trafficking activities entered Honduran airspace in 2010 alone, using what is known as the “air bridge” cocaine route between Venezuela and Honduras.

In his role as a leader of the Cártel de Los Soles, Maduro Moros negotiated multi-ton shipments of FARC-produced cocaine; directed that the Cártel de Los Soles provide military-grade weapons to the FARC; coordinated foreign affairs with Honduras and other countries to facilitate large-scale drug trafficking; and solicited assistance from FARC leadership in training an unsanctioned militia group that functioned, in essence, as an armed forces unit for the Cártel de Los Soles.

DEA’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit, New York Strike Force, and Miami Field Division conducted the investigation. This case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda L. Houle, Matthew J. Laroche, Jason A. Richman, and Kyle A. Wirshba are in charge of the prosecution.

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An indictment unsealed today in the District of Columbia charges Vladimir Padrino Lopez, 56, Minister of Defense of Venezuela. The indictment alleges that from March 2014 until May 2019, Padrino Lopez conspired with others to distribute cocaine on board an aircraft registered in the United States.

Padrino Lopez, who holds the rank of General in the Venezuelan armed forces, held the authority for interdicting aircraft, many of which are registered in the United States, suspected of being used to traffic drugs from Venezuela to countries in Central America. On numerous occasions, Padrino Lopez ordered or authorized the Venezuelan military to force suspected trafficking aircraft to land or to shoot down the aircraft. However, Padrino Lopez allowed for other aircraft whose drug trafficking coordinators paid bribes to him to safely transit Venezuelan airspace.

On Sept. 25, 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) included Padrino Lopez on its Specially Designated Nationals List. Pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, this means that his assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from having financial transactions with him.

The DEA Orlando District Office led the investigation, which was supported by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program and the Criminal Division’s Office of Enforcement Operations. Acting Deputy Chief Charles Miracle and Trial Attorneys Michael Christin and Kirt Marsh of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section are prosecuting the case.

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Maikel Jose Moreno Perez, 54, current Chief Justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, was charged via a criminal complaint in the Southern District of Florida with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering in connection with the alleged corrupt receipt or intended receipt of tens of millions of dollars and bribes to illegally fix dozens of civil and criminal cases in Venezuela.

The complaint alleges, for example, that the defendant authorized a seizure and sale of a General Motors auto plant with an estimated value of $100 million in exchange for a personal percentage of the proceeds. Similarly, the complaint alleges that the defendant received bribes to authorize the dismissal of charges or release against Venezuelans, including one charged in a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme against the Venezuelan state-owned oil company.

According to the criminal complaint, in or around October 2014, Moreno Perez told U.S. authorities in a visa application that he earned the equivalent of about $12,000 per year from his work in Venezuela. From 2012 to 2016, the defendant’s U.S. bank records show approximately $3 million in inflows to the defendant’s accounts, primarily from large round-dollar transfers from shell corporations with foreign bank accounts linked to Co-Conspirator 1, who is a former criminal defense attorney in Venezuela that currently controls a media company in Venezuela.

As set out in the criminal complaint, the defendant’s bank records allegedly show that from 2012 to 2016, the defendant spent approximately $3 million, primarily in the geographical area of South Florida. For example, bank records allegedly show that Moreno Perez spent about $1 million for a private aircraft and private pilot, more than $600,000 in credit or debit card purchases at stores primarily in South Florida (including tens of thousands of dollars at luxury stores in Bal Harbor, such as Prada and Salvatore Ferragamo), about $50,000 in payments to a luxury watch repair store in Aventura, and approximately $40,000 in payments to a Venezuelan beauty pageant director.

HSI’s Miami Field Office conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael N. Berger of the Southern District of Florida is in charge of the prosecution.

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A separate superseding indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York charges Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, 45, Venezuela’s vice president for the economy, Joselit Ramirez Camacho, 33, Venezuela’s superintendent of cryptocurrency (Sunacrip), and Samark Lopez Bello, 45, a Venezuelan businessman, with a series of crimes relating to efforts to evade sanctions imposed by OFAC against Maduro Moros, El Aissami Maddah, and Lopez Bello.

The indictment alleges that from February 2017 until March 2019, El Aissami Maddah and Ramirez Camacho worked with U.S. persons and U.S.-based entities to provide private flight services for the benefit of Maduro’s 2018 presidential campaign, in violation of OFAC’s sanctions targeting Maduro after he organized elections for the illegitimate National Constituent Assembly that Cabello Rondon now leads.

The U.S. Department of State, through its Narcotics Rewards Program, is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of El Aissami Maddah.

HSI’s New York Field Office conducted the investigation. This case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sam Adelsberg and Amanda L. Houle are in charge of the prosecution.

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Other individuals charged in separate indictments include:

Luis Motta Dominguez, 67, Former Minister of Energy, was charged in the Southern District of Florida for his alleged role in laundering the proceeds of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with his alleged receipt of bribes to award Corpoelec business to U.S.-based companies;
Nestor Reverol Torres, 55, former General Director of Venezuela’s La Oficina Nacional Antidrogas (ONA) and former commander of Venezuela’s National Guard and Edylberto Jose Molina Molina, 57, former Sub-Director of Venezuela’s ONA and currently Venezuela’s military attaché to Germany, were charged in the Eastern District of New York with participating in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy where they allegedly assisted narcotics traffickers in importing cocaine into the United States;
Vassyly Kotosky Villarroel Ramirez aka “Mauro” and “Angel,” 47, a former captain in the Venezuelan Guardia Nacional, was charged in a third superseding indictment in the Eastern District of New York with participating in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 1, 2009;
Rafael Antonio Villasana Fernandez, 48, a former officer in the Venezuelan Guardia Nacional, was charged in the Eastern District of New York with participating in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 1, 2009. According to court documents, Kotosky and Villasana allegedly used official government vehicles to transport more than seven metric tons of cocaine from the Colombian border to various airports and seaports in Venezuela for ultimate importation into the United States;
Nervis Gerardo Villalobos Cardenas, 52, former Vice Minister of Energy of Venezuela, was charged in a 20-count indictment in the Southern District of Texas with conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for his alleged role in an international money laundering scheme involving bribes paid by the owners of U.S.-based companies to Venezuelan government officials to corruptly secure energy contracts and payment priority on outstanding invoices; and
Oscar Rafael Colmenarez Villalobos, 51, former Venezuelan Air Force Officer, charged in the District of Arizona with violations of the Arms Export Control Act. He allegedly conspired with others, including individuals associated with an aviation company in Arizona, to smuggle from the United States to Venezuela T-76 military aircraft engines used on OV-10 Bronco aircraft to individuals in Venezuela and allegedly made false and misleading statements on shipping and export control documents to conceal the prohibited activities and transactions from detection of the U.S. government.

An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.