In 2013, NicolĂĄs Maduro became president of Venezuela following the death of his charismatic predecessor Hugo ChĂĄvez. Since then, the countryâs cocaine trade has undergone revolutionary changes.
Today, Venezuela is at risk of becoming the worldâs fourth cocaine-producing country. And the Maduro regime has positioned itself as the gatekeeper to the countryâs drug trade, controlling access to cocaineâs riches not only for drug traffickers but also for corrupt politicians and the military-embedded trafficking network known as the âCartel of the Suns.â
The product of more than three years of investigations, hundreds of interviews and field work in all of Venezuelaâs key drug trafficking territories, this InSight Crime investigation looks at one of the worldâs most important cocaine trafficking hubs â and the authoritarian regime that keeps the drugs flowing.
Venezuelaâs Move to Cocaine Production: Crops, Chemists and Criminal Evolution:
CARTEL OF THE SUNS / 2 MAY 2022
In October 2021, the Venezuelan Ministry of the Interior issued an ordinary looking statement about an antinarcotics operation in the state of Zulia that had extraordinary implications: the military hadâŠ
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Maduro Seeks to Regulate the Cocaine Trade
CARTEL OF THE SUNS / 2 MAY 2022
In 2013, NicolĂĄs Maduro became president of one of the worldâs most important cocaine hubs, inheriting a unique drug trafficking eco-system where the line between the underworld and the stateâŠ
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Beyond the Cartel of the Suns
CARTEL OF THE SUNS / 2 MAY 2022
In 2020, the US Department of Justice released a bombshell indictment charging sitting Venezuelan President NicolĂĄs Maduro and other senior members of his government with ânarco-terrorismâ and accusing them ofâŠ
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The ParaguanĂĄ Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Political Power in Venezuela
CARTEL OF THE SUNS / 2 MAY 2022
On April 3, 2021, police in the east Venezuelan state of AnzoĂĄtegui acted on a tip-off to intercept a silver Toyota Corolla. They interrogated the driver, a middle-aged woman accompaniedâŠ
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Gordito GonzĂĄlez and Venezuelaâs Narco-brokers
CARTEL OF THE SUNS / 2 MAY 2022
In 2016, two adopted nephews of Venezuelan President NicolĂĄs Maduro were found guilty of a conspiracy to bring 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.
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AVISEUR INTERNATIONAL 
A reblogué ceci sur The Owl Criminology.
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