Venezuela Increasingly A Conduit For Cocaine

"The effort by these criminal organizations is to avoid pressure," said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "They go to places where they think they will be able to avoid pressure. Their movement shows you where weaknesses are."

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Colombian intelligence has detected as many as seven major Colombian traffickers operating in Venezuela, among them Wilber Varela, considered by some anti-drug agencies to be the most powerful cartel leader in South America. Colombian authorities say renegade commanders from a disbanded right-wing paramilitary coalition also operate along Venezuela's northern border, while Marxist rebels have influence to the south.

Compounding the problem is the corruption among government forces on the 1,300-mile border Colombia shares with Venezuela. It is so serious, officials say, that a group of generals in the Venezuelan National Guard is believed to be running a virtual operation known as the Cartel of the Suns, a reference to the stars on their uniforms.

"A Venezuelan military officer fights to get sent to the border," said Camero, the former drug czar, who was abruptly forced out in 2005. "He knows he'll earn more money there than simply as an officer of the Venezuelan armed forces."

In interviews, two jailed members of trafficking organizations -- both of whom have provided information to Colombian and Venezuelan officials -- spoke of coordination between Venezuelan authorities and traffickers.

"They collaborated with narco-traffickers, and they'd work with us," said Rafael Garcia, a former Colombian intelligence official who was also a member of the once-powerful Northern Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces, a paramilitary organization.

Garcia, who is jailed in Bogota, said one of the biggest Colombian traffickers in Venezuela has been Hermagoras Gonzalez, better known as the Fatman Gonzalez, who authorities say has obtained credentials from the DISIP.

Another suspected trafficker, Farid Feris Dom¿nguez, jailed in Combita prison north of Bogota, spoke of how he lived in a $900,000 house in the exclusive La Lagunita neighborhood of Caracas and enjoyed the privileges of a Venezuelan diplomatic passport. He said he had also been close to Correa, the former drug czar removed by Ch¿vez.

The Venezuelan government said Dom¿nguez's arrest in Caracas last year, and subsequent handover to Colombian authorities, shows its commitment to arresting cartel leaders. But Dom¿nguez said Venezuelan authorities had extorted him and handed him over to the Colombians only after they'd concluded he'd become a liability.

"They betrayed me, the same agencies I had been working with," he said.

Deadly Consequences

The traffickers have stepped up their activities as Venezuela's government has sharply curtailed relations with U.S. counter-drug officials.

Saying his government would not stand for what he called violations of Venezuela's sovereignty, Ch¿vez banned American surveillance flights in its airspace in 1999, shortly after he took office. Then, in August 2005, he suspended bilateral anti-drug cooperation after accusing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of spying, charges the Bush administration strenuously denies.