Venezuela's ex-spymaster pleads guilty to US drug trafficking charges
PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo — Former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal stands during his extradition hearing to U.S. at the High Court in Madrid, Spain, September 12, 2019. Emilio Naranjo/Pool via REUTERS
WASHINGTON - A former director of Venezuelan military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to drug trafficking and narcoterrorism charges in U.S. federal court, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Carvajal, 65, once one of the most powerful figures in the Venezuelan government, pleaded guilty to four criminal counts including narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, and weapons charges. He faces a maximum of life in prison.
“The deeply troubling reality is that there are powerful foreign government officials who conspire to flood the United States with drugs that kill and debilitate,” Jay Clayton, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement.
A lawyer for Carvajal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Federal prosecutors alleged Carvajal, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan government and military officials, led a drug cartel that coordinated the shipment of tons of cocaine bound for the United States.
The cartel partnered with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a now demobilized guerrilla group that the United States once considered a terrorist organization, to produce and distribute cocaine, prosecutors alleged.
Carvajal was late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's eyes and ears within the South American country's military for more than a decade.
Nicknamed "El Pollo," the chicken, Carvajal took part in the failed 1992 coup that lifted Chavez to political prominence and is considered one of the most powerful figures of the socialist leader's 1999-2013 rule.
Carvajal was extradited to the United States from Spain in 2023 following a more than 10-year effort by the Justice Department to bring him to U.S. soil.
His sentencing in U.S. court in Manhattan is scheduled for October.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Chris Reese // REUTERS)
