CDS Transforms Venezuelan Pueblo into Cartel Bastion

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Infobae

The Sinaloa Cartel and its power in San Felipe: the Venezuelan town that has become its criminal stronghold; The population near Colombia looks like an extension of the Sierra Sinaloa where ''El Mayo Zambada" operates, with clandestine airstrips and commandos that circulate with narco-runs at full volume.

Machiques de Perijá , a Venezuelan municipality devastated by violence and a key piece for international drug trafficking, is now the refuge of the bloody Sinaloa Cartel, which operates under the complacent gaze of dictator Nicolás Maduro , according to the vice president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Juan Pablo Guanipa.

The region located 872 kilometers from the capital of Caracas, Venezuela and 876 kilometers from Colombia, reconfirms the ties of the Mexican cartels with South America.

The Insight Crime Foundation described the community of San Felipe, in Machiques de Perijá (Zulia), as one of the routes most coveted by the drug traffickers of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada , in addition to projecting itself as the new drug trafficking platform to the United States. 

The impact of the presence of the Sinaloa Cartel has reached such a point that the town of San Felipe was renamed with the name of one of the most important bastions of drug traffickers in Mexico: "Sinaloa".

According to the site specialized in national security, the drug lords have changed the daily life of the area with the proliferation of luxurious trucks, parties with narco-corrido music, prostitution and other series of eccentricities.

        Everyday life in Machiques de Perijá has been penetrated by the Mafia of the Sinaloa Cartel

In Machiques de Perijá, in recent times, violence has worsened as never before. The inhabitants who are forced to adapt rudimentary runways, which serve for the landing and departures of drug-loaded aircraft.

The Mexican criminal organization has quickly become an important actor in Venezuelan territory. Here one can get an idea of ​​the penetration of the predatory mafia in Venezuela, where at least seven airstrips for drug trafficking planes were detected.

In July 2019, Infobae America  documented that the residents suffer not only from organized crime attacks, but also extortion from the authorities, who threaten to put them in jail if they do not pay them for allowing them to build the tracks.

The data and calculations available to the working class in Zulia show that the state has nearly 400 runways for the landing and departure of narco-planes bound for the Caribbean and Central American Islands , which the Mexicans have adapted with the support of the Liberation Army National (ELN).

The constant flow of Colombian cocaine and the silence of the Venezuelan authorities have made Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and the Sinaloan cartel feel protected in the South American region. 

To land or take off from the runways of Machiques de Perijá, Zulia , the emissaries of the Sinaloa Cartel pay from USD 40,000 to USD 60,000. Farmers who are unwilling to cooperate with drug traffickers risk being incriminated for drug trafficking.

There have also been cases of complicity between the Venezuelan Air Force and the Mexican cartel. Gino Alfonso Garcés, a former captain of said agency, received bribes of USD $500,000 for the passage of planes loaded with drugs.

This event is not the first that allows Mexican drug traffickers to operate in Venezuela before the silence of the authorities. In June 2019, Iris Varela confirmed the flight of three citizens of Mexican nationality who had been captured for the sale of narcotic drugs.

The criminals had the support of internal logistics and access to long weapons for their escape.

Venezuela has been playing a leading role in the drug trafficking of the Sinaloa Cartel. Since the late 1990s, the organization founded by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and the Cartel de los Soles - linked to Nicolás Maduro - have found a safe route that allows them to traffic drugs from Colombia to the United States.

The narcotics are sent to the border with Venezuela from where they leave for Honduras and in that country they are transported by the Sinaloa cartel, which is in charge of introducing it to Mexico and later to the American Union.

During the trial of “El Chapo” in the United States, there was a part that confirmed this relationship: the one that refers to a man of Dominican origin named Antonio “Toño,” whom Colombian drug lord Alex Cifuentes-Villa recommended to distribute drugs in the United States.

Guzmán Loera asked the Dominican to get land in his country to build a "rayita", ie a landing strip, to connect the shipments from Venezuela to Mexico.

The prosecutor Gina Parlovecchio presented audios on the talks between "El Chapo" and "Toño", who was slow to comply with the Mexican's request.

The Mexican drug trafficker was referring to a piece of land for "furniture" to be delivered in reference to planes that would go to "Loco." The prosecutor questioned Cifuentes about what Guzmán Loera was referring to in that conversation, the answer was that it was the way “El Chapo” spoke of the Venezuelan, "Chávez the Madman”, ( Hugo Chávez ), although it was not clear whether there was a relationship with his government.

Experts say that thanks to the structure of the Sinaloa Cartel, business with the South American organization continues.

On March 26, the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro and other prominent members of the Chavista regime such as Diosdado Cabello Rondón, president of the illegitimate Constituent Assembly; Maikel Moreno, President of the Supreme Court of Justice; Vladimir Padrino, Minister of Defense; Hugo Carvajal Barrios, former director of military intelligence; Retired General Cliver Alcalá Cordones, who lives in Colombia, and Tareck El Aissami, Minister of Industry and National Production, were accused by the US government of flooding the streets of that country with cocaine.

Likewise, the incrimination indicates that the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez , was also part of the same criminal network, although due to his death he does not include him among the accused.

Back round Information from the July 28, 2019 Interview by Venezuelan Reporter:

7 airstrips have been detected that are dedicated solely for drug trafficking planes but there could be up to 300 on the Venezuelan border near the town of  Zulia:

Agricultural Producers are terrified by the collusion of local officials with criminal groups:

At least seven drug trafficking airstrips , from La Cañada de Urdaneta to the Catatumbo del Zulia, exist and have been visible to agricultural producers in the area, who remain in silence and terror, because the power of drug traffickers includes officials who end up denouncing those who make denouncements. "It has already happened to us," a farm owner reveals to us," and the consequence is that those indicated have had to abandon their production units, leaving them almost dumped."

Drug trafficking has advanced so much that the inhabitants of a town on the border have the essential work of building runways for the landing of drug trafficking aircraft.

He relates that they are forced to allow the tracks to be built on their farms, under the threat that their life is in danger if they oppose or denounce the criminal drug traffickers. And on the other hand, the authorities extort them by putting them in jail, if they do not pay them, for having allowed them to have made the tracks or airstrips.

On November 16, 2015, producer Gaspar Enrique Rincón Urdaneta was a victim of the cartels who suspected that he was denouncing them. When he left his El Zanjón farm in the El Guamito sector in a van, on the road that leads to Caleta beach, San José de Perijá parish, several heavily armed men attacked him, managing to hit the vehicle and the man 20 times. He had been president of the Cattle Ranchers Association of Las Piedras.

We spoke with a producer threatened by the situation that occurs with the cartels and the construction of runways for the aircraft that transport the drugs. "We have met with the authorities and they have told us that they have counted 300-400 tracks in the western region of Zulia up to the South of the Lake."

-But why don't they destroy them?

We do not know. And the military authorities know that even "El Truncal 6" is used as a track. The security forces stop traffic at each end so that the plane makes the "touchdown". In addition, they protect the tracks and therefore they harass the producers so that they leave the farms.

-What if the producer stubbornly refuses to allow runways to be made?

They are threatened by those who handle drug trafficking in Zulia. It is no longer possible to produce on the border in these conditions of threat and extortion. The drug cartels, the main one of them is Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, operate because they are protected by officials. The producer cannot refuse because his machinery is burned or he is killed.

-What happens to farms that are abandoned by their owners or whose owners decide to leave?

Some try to keep replacing managers, but the Army pressures them to force them to evict their own premises.

-What about the police and military authorities?

They extort them. If the producer makes a denouncement it, he is exposed to the drug traffickers and, on the other hand, the authorities extort them. The authorities will just plant a part of a small plane on the farm or a fuel tank of airplane, then they detain them and file them, arguing that they are linked to drug trafficking, when in reality they are only victims of that. Last week they did it to two producers and presented them to the media.

-Where do those drug trafficking tracks go?

From Maracaibo to the South of the Lake. Even the Lake Coast is something beastly, because drug cartels and irregular armed groups took over the area, displacing producers.

-The seven tracks that you know are in the area are located where exactly?

The strongest presence is from Machiques de Perijá to Catatumbo, in areas attached from "El Truncal  6 (the road that connects Táchira with Zulia, commonly called the Machiques-Colón highway) towards Lake Maracaibo.

There are agricultural producers, who do not live in the area, who have made denouncements  directly in Caracas, because in the region, when it has been done, the drug traffickers are informed. Still they threaten producers. A producer named Gaspar Rincón was assassinated in the San José de Perijá area only because they believed he had denounced them and that is why they finished him off  inside his van. Since then no one has spoken.