Putin's Venezuelan Communist cartel
The mafia regime of Chavez-Maduro and why it is so dear to Putin.
1.Comandante Macaque.
As is often the case in Latin America, Venezuela is a country where de facto there is no single titular nation. Venezuelans are not one people, but two. One nation is whites (42% of the population), the second is mestizos (51%) and with them blacks and Indians.
Whites in Venezuela are for the most part not the descendants of the colonialists and planters, as many people think. In the 20th century, there was a large influx of immigrants from Europe, especially in the 1940s and 60s. He was encouraged by the then authorities of the country. It was believed that the "whiter" Venezuela was, the better economically and politically.
So the white minority here has little to do with the colonial era. However, white Venezuelans have historically been the country's elite, the backbone of the middle class, and have surpassed all other groups in terms of education and income. It was the whites who ruled Venezuela for 200 years. Until Chavez showed up.
A lieutenant colonel from the landing, a half-breed by origin, his ancestors were blacks and Indians, which he always proudly spoke about. He came to power in 1998 in democratic elections.
December 6, 1998 Election of Chavez. Triumph on the streets in the capital of Venezuela.
The people sobbed. The first mestizo president in history.
In fact, in those elections, Chavez barely won just over 50% of the vote. The slums stood behind him like a mountain, wept, but from the very beginning there were millions of people in the country who could not stand him at all. And they don't go anywhere.
Every irreconcilable opposition loves to give its opponents contemptuous nicknames. For example, Putin in modern Russian is bald, dusty, botox, dwarf, and so on. But the first nickname of Chavez among the opposition was "ese mono" (this monkey).
And the most famous caricature of Chavez during his reign (it bypassed all the opposition media) was this drawing by the artist Kiko Rodriguez. It is called "Miko Mandante" :
There's a play on words here. “Mi Comandante” is “My Comandante”. Chavez liked to be called that, in imitation of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But "Miko Mandante" in a free translation - "Comandante Monkey" or "Commandante Macaque." In the hand of the monkey is a grenade and a club with the inscription "Revolution".
“Hating me is closely related to racism. All because I have a big mouth and curly hair. But I am very proud that I have such a mouth and such hair. Because I have it - from Africa ” (Hugo Chavez. From an interview with American journalist Amy Goodman on September 20, 2005).
However, the problem was not only that Chavez had a big mouth and curly hair. The problem was in the idea that he stubbornly implemented throughout the years of his reign (and Maduro continued). And the idea was to build socialism in Venezuela like Cuba. Those. a system known on Russian soil as SOVOK.
“What will happen if you arrange socialism in the Sahara desert? “The first three years, nothing, then interruptions with sand will begin” (an old Soviet joke).
2. Two lieutenant colonels.
Putin in an interview with journalist Oleg Blotsky for the book “Vladimir Putin. Life Story (2001) said that he grew up in Leningrad in the environment of Sand Pit Generals (an American film about underage gangsters in Latin America). Chavez said nothing of the sort about his childhood. His parents are school teachers. As they say in Russia - the rural intelligentsia. Poor, but educated people who took care of their children so that they would not grow up in doorways and sand pits. This is far from the son of a cleaning lady and a watchman, brought up by the street.
At the age of 17, young Chavez entered the military academy. Becoming an officer, he was sent to a punitive detachment that fought against communist partisans in the jungle. While he served in it, he himself was imbued with the ideas of socialism, becoming a member of the left underground in Venezuela. Whatever one may say, we have before us a man capable of going against the system. Even risking life and shoulder straps.
Putin, in his 4th year at Leningrad State University, was recruited as an informer of the 5th department of the KGB (“Fight against ideological sabotage”). It was the Soviet secret police, the department for combating dissent. There, in the "five", Putin served for many years, until he was transferred to intelligence. Putin never went against the system. He crawled on his belly in front of her. He scribbled denunciations to the department of universities of the 5th department, and then he himself worked as an opera in it.
Putin's colleague in Dresden Vladimir Gortanov, a KGB lieutenant colonel with whom they sat in the same office, recalled that the Soviet officer Putin, having got into his first business trip abroad, was downright fascinated by the idea of money-grubbing. For hours in his office, he studied thick catalogs of West German clothes, dreaming of getting himself something from this junk (inaccessible in the USSR).
This is also recalled by Dietmar Klodo, a left-wing terrorist from the FRG who was training in East Germany at that time (Putin was his KGB liaison). As Claudo recalled in an interview with journalist Masha Gessen, even when he and his comrades traveled to West Germany to carry out terrorist attacks, Putin always asked to bring him something from junk, but, however, he always offered money for it. Everything is fair.
Once they stole a car for some kind of action, at the same time they pulled out an expensive Blaupunkt audio system from there and then brought it to Putin in Dresden. He was immensely happy, life was a success. And then he put the radio tape recorder stolen by the terrorists in his company car.
Unlike Putin, Officer Chavez was a person of a higher stature. He didn't go through western junk catalogs. Don't buy stolen goods. He read books on philosophy, history, works on Marxism. This is not Lubyanka mold for you. A bright, intelligent personality, although obsessed with false theories.
After 6 years of service in the army, Chavez, a young well-read officer, was transferred to the capital as a teacher at the military academy. There, a stormy political career awaited him as part of various leftist movements. As a result, in 1998 he became president.
This happened at about the same time as Putin - he was appointed Yeltsin's successor on August 7, 1999. If anyone remembers those first Putin's elections, he went to the Kremlin with three simple slogans: to wet the Chechens in the toilet, the "vertical of power" and catch up with Portugal in terms of GDP per capita (the poorest country in Western Europe).
Chechnya is now an independent protectorate khanate, the “vertical” turned out to be just a dictatorship of the mafia and security officers, and Portugal was never caught up.
Chavez was more honest in his first elections. He talked a lot about socialism, which he was going to build in Venezuela, about protecting the poor and oppressed, offended and offended, but most importantly, the most formidable warning sounded: the Cuban experience. Chavez did not hide his admiration for Cuba, F. Castro's regime and offered it as a model.
For those who understand: Cuban socialism is hellish poverty, salt and matches on coupons, the same family has been in power for 60 years, devastation, and damned Americans are to blame for everything. But the boy said - the boy did. Over the course of 20 years, Chávez and his successor Maduro gradually brought Venezuela to the state of Cuba and even worse. This is despite the fact that there is no oil in Cuba.
Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, March 5, 2014. The wealthy region of Chacao. An opposition action against Cubans whom Chavez and Maduro invited to the country in tens of thousands as advisers, doctors, etc.
A scarecrow of a Cuban with black lips cut out of a bandage (most Cubans are blacks) and something like: "Cuban doctors are nonsense." The meaning of the action: Negroes came in large numbers, and from a Cuban a doctor, like from shit - a bullet.
All these opposition actions would not have gone beyond the discontented white minority, if oil prices had not collapsed in the same 2014. The budget became scarce, and its former social base, the poor from the slums, began to leave the regime. No handouts, no loyalty.
And besides, over the years it has become clearly visible that the Chavez-Maduro regime has one more - a shadowy and very unattractive side. It's called cocaine.
3. Drug cartel "Sun".
In Russia, five-pointed stars flaunt on the shoulder straps of generals. For example, like this Tuvan shepherd:
Or this colleague Roma Tsepov (the legendary authority of gangster Petersburg, who was killed in 2004):
Not to mention the true patriots of Russia - the militants of the village of Tsentaroy (the ancestral village of the Kadyrovs):
But in Venezuela, on the shoulder straps of generals, there are not stars, but images of the Sun:
One golden sun on shoulder straps is a brigadier general (major general in Russian), two suns are a divisional general, etc. Shoigu (general of the army) in Venezuela would be four times the golden sun.
So back in 1993, even before Chavez, there was a loud scandal in Venezuela: two generals of the local National Guard, Ramon Davila and Orlando Villegas, they are the main drug fighters in the country, were themselves involved in the drug trade. Nearby is Colombia, the world's first producer of cocaine, and Venezuela is a convenient transit route. So the guys with the suns on shoulder straps could not stand the temptation. Since then, a new expression has appeared in the local slang: "Cartel de los Soles". In Russian, this is translated as the cartel "Sun" or "cartel of stars" (generals in the sense). In general, a cartel of local generals.
In 1998, Chavez became president of the country. He carried out a purge in the army, removed some generals, appointed others. And ... he reformed the Sun cartel, adapting it to his needs. According to the American research group InsightCrime (the largest center for monitoring drug trafficking in Latin America), at least since 2002, the former "Sun Cartel" has been simply integrated into the state apparatus of Venezuela.
If earlier the cartel of generals transported cocaine at their own peril and risk, then under Chavez it became a state matter, which included everyone: the top of the army, provincial governors, relatives of top officials.
2010 year. Chavez is still alive (Maduro replaced him in 2013). Map of flights of small aircraft with cocaine from Venezuela to neighboring countries (data from the US Army Southern Command, which monitors the air situation in the Caribbean region). During the year - 95 flights to Honduras and 43 - to Haiti. Almost once every two days - a drug flight. There are transshipment bases in Honduras and Haiti, from there cocaine is transported to the United States by boats, other aircraft and other available methods.
How is this a twist, you ask? How did a fiery revolutionary, Marxist, socialist become a drug lord? - The army in Latin America is a terrible force. One such revolutionary in Chile already wanted to build a Cuban scoop in the 1970s. But the generals, whom he completely trusted before, raised a putsch and killed the revolutionary. His fans were herded to the stadium and the issue was also radically resolved. Therefore, Chavez decided to ensure the loyalty of the generals by tying them with coke.
This is quite Putin-like. The entire Putin elite is tied up with something: on one - the murder of Nemtsov, on the other - explosions of houses in Moscow, on the third - kickbacks from oil, on that - "newcomer", on this - heroin. It is naive to think that when the people come out against them, as against the Chavistas in Venezuela, they will scatter themselves. Where to run if everyone is tied up and the resorts of Magadan are crying for everyone? Similarly, with the top of the army in Venezuela - that's why he is the "cartel of generals."
4. Drug-nephews.
2015, the island of Haiti. Scandal “Narcosobrinas” (narco-nephews). DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agents red-handed two nephews of Maduro's wife while trying to smuggle 800 kg of cocaine through Haiti to the United States.
Both drug nephews arrested in Haiti are longtime drug dealers. During interrogations, they said that they shared their income with Maduro's wife, who is a noble drug baron in Venezuela. They personally brought a batch of cocaine to Haiti on a private jet. They were accompanied by two more officers from Maduro's guard. The cocaine was bought from the FARC (narco-rebels in the jungles of Colombia), with New York planned as the final destination. Ordinary work, everyday life of the cartel "Sun", which is embedded in the Venezuelan state. If it can be called a state, of course.
Persons involved in the scandal with "drug-nephews". Tsilya Flores, Maduro's wife:
Her drug nieces. The guys carried cocaine around the world with diplomatic passports from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry (does it remind you of anything?):
And these are the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels . Officially, they are fighting for the construction of socialism in this country. In fact - one of the local drug cartels.
The FARC rebels are armed very well. Everything can be bought with cocaine.
Who do they buy weapons from? - Anyone who can sell. Putin and Sechin. Lukashenka and Sheiman (father's assistant in criminal cases). You never know who want to make money on the black arms market.
With the advent of Chavez, Venezuela developed a special relationship with the FARC. The Chavez-Maduro regime has been at odds with neighboring Colombia for many years, and the rebels are fighting against its government. Therefore, under Chavez, Venezuela became an important supply channel for the FARC. Presumably, if a civil war happens in Venezuela itself, Colombia will also help someone with machine guns and cartridges.
By the way, Maduro's drug-nephews got into this FARC exactly the same as Viktor Bout in 2008. After all, then a mediator from the FARC also approached the main arms baron of Russia and offered to sell Russian weapons to the cocaine rebels. Booth knew this intermediary well (a certain Andrew Smulyan from South Africa), they worked together in Africa back in the 90s. What Bout did not know was that this was a set-up: the FARC representatives with whom he and Smulyan are negotiating are actually DEA agents. The result is 25 years in prison.
The same middleman from the FARC (and at the same time a DEA agent) also worked with the nephews of Maduro's wife. Later, in the Western and Latin American press, there were reports that after the arrest of drug nephews, this man (in the case he appeared as a “CW-1 agent”) was calculated by the mafia and killed.
Moscow, January 2008. But and Smulyan in Moscow. It was a key meeting on the eve of the FARC deal - two old arms dealers took the bait prepared by the DEA.
They also took them together, luring them to Thailand. In prison, Smulyan broke down and testified against Bout, adding to his term. Himself received only 5 years. Bout was also offered a deal: to testify against Sechin, who oversees the supply of weapons to Latin America (including illegal ones), and thereby knock off his sentence. However, Bout's family is in Russia, and he refused the deal.
The Putin regime immediately began to sculpt from Bout almost a "prisoner of conscience" and a "victim of Russophobia." Although the normal (not Russophobic) state SAMO should have put Bout, Smulyan and Sechin in prison back in Moscow. Without waiting for Colombian drugs to flood Russia in exchange for MANPADS and Kalashnikovs.
5. Don Cabello.
In any organized criminal group there must be a boss, someone in charge. Who leads the Venezuelan state drug cartel "Sun"? Western studies of the Venezuelan drug mafia claim that neither Chavez nor Maduro, who replaced him, are the leaders of the Sun drug cartel. And even Maduro's wife and her relatives are not the main ones there. And the main thing in this organized crime group is this man in civilian clothes, the "grey eminence" named Diosdado Cabello:
Cabello is an old colleague of Chavez, under Maduro he is the second person in the state. For the first time, the general public learned about him, as the actual leader of the Sun cartel, in 2015.
A year earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Salazar fled from Venezuela to the United States. He was Chavez's security chief, and after his death, Cabello's security chief. It was this private security defector who gave detailed testimony to the DEA about the inner workings of the Chávez-Maduro regime. Salazar called his former boss Cabello the center of all corruption in the country and the leader of the local drug mafia.
To assess the situation, imagine that Salazar is such a local Zolotov, a security guard who is especially close to the dictator. And Cabello is the local Patrushev, deputy leader in crime. Now imagine that Zolotov flees abroad and testifies against Patrushev. This is what happened in Venezuela in 2014-15.
Since Venezuela under Chavez-Maduro is officially building socialism (or narco-socialism, if you like), the drug lord Cabello regularly appears in the appropriate outfit: a revolutionary red beret a la Chavez and a red tie in the style of the Soviet pioneers. But this does not change the essence of the matter.
Our Venezuelan friends. Sechin and drug lord Cabello (far right). Meeting in Caracas on May 27, 2015. In Venezuela, Cabello not only oversees cocaine, but also oil, the regime's second source of income.
Much has already been written that Sechin and Rosneft have invested billions of dollars in Venezuela. In some murky joint ventures with the local oil monopoly PDVSA (it is also controlled by Don Cabello). That now this money is unlikely to return, "Russia has lost 17 billion dollars." etc. and so on.
My friends, Don Cabello, Tsilya Flores, Garik Sechin and the entire Solntse drug cartel look at you as if they were… people who do not understand the essence of the moment. This money was not invested in order to return to Russia. A return was not expected. Searching for oil in the wild jungles of Orinoco is like developing nanotechnologies in Skolkovo. The result is not known, and the dough can be written off any amount.
6. "Famous Venezuelan drug dealer."
Pictured below is Tarek El Aissami. Another old ally of Chavez, who has held high positions in Venezuela for many years, is the Minister of the Interior, Governor, Vice President, and currently the Minister of Industry. By origin - an Arab, parents come from Lebanon and Syria. Personal fortune - 3 billion dollars.
According to the US authorities, Mr. El Aissami plays an important role in the structure of the regime. He is a member of the Solntse drug cartel, making a feasible contribution to the uninterrupted supply of coke to foreign partners. In particular, Maduro's drug nephews carried coke on a plane provided by El Aissami.
El Aissami is also responsible for the cartel's common fund, which is hidden in foreign banks, and for the regime's connections with international terrorists and drug traffickers. Especially with Hezbollah - these are El Aissami's tribesmen, Shiites from Lebanon. Well, in his spare time, he still manages the Venezuelan industry. So everything is good with the industry there.
In 2017, Tarek El Aissami became the target of US personal sanctions for involvement in the drug trade. Fragment of the press release of the US Treasury dated February 13, 2017: “The US Treasury imposes sanctions against the famous Venezuelan drug dealer Tarek El Aissami” (literally in the text). There is also a description of some of the actions of the character: he organized the transfer of cocaine by planes from a military base and through ports, was a co-owner of the transported cocaine, etc.
A network of front companies and airlines for the cocaine trade, which, according to the US Treasury, was created by El Aissami through his proxies:
Let me remind you that this drug lord is one of the closest associates of Chavez and Maduro, in 2017-18. - Vice President of Venezuela
7. Made by us. Drug cartel "Brotherly circle".
One of the areas of vigorous activity of Tarek El Aissami is the issuance (sale) of Venezuelan passports to the right people. In 2017 , it turned out that through his efforts, 173 (!) Hezbollah terrorists received Venezuelan passports to make it easier for them to hide and travel around the world.
In addition to Arab terrorists, El Aissami arranged for the issuance of passports to other persecuted categories of citizens - Basque militants from ETA, Colombian drug rebels, international mafiosi of all kinds.
And in particular, this amusing character in the photo below, who is sitting on the beach between Yaponchik and Shakro Molodoy, received a Venezuelan passport:
This is thief in law Vladislav Leontiev (Vadik Bely). One of the leaders of Russian organized crime. He lives in Dubai, from where he leads an organization called the Brothers' Circle. This is how the US authorities in 2012 dubbed the drug cartel , which imports Afghan heroin to Russia and further to Europe and America.
The same cartel, according to the Americans, includes Gafur Cherny (authority from Uzbekistan), thieves in law Kolya-Kyrgyz and Vasya Voskres, Adam Delimkhanov , nicknamed "The Executioner" (this is the one who walks around the Duma with a golden "Stechkin", Kadyrov's cousin ) and other worthy people.
U.S. Treasury press release on sanctions against leaders of Brothers' Circle (2012). Vadik Bely is the first in the list:
In general, according to the UN, the supply of heroin from Afghanistan to the Russian Federation in 2011-15. amounted to 50 tons per year in terms of 100% pure heroin.
If the US intelligence services do not lie to us, and this transit is led by Vadik Bely, then he (or those people who protect him) are drug lords of the level of Pablo Escobar, Gilberto "Chess Player" (the Cali cartel) or "Shorty" Guzman (the cartel " Sinaloa"). So I think, in Putin's Chekist state, what kind of shorty is roofing heroin? Is it possible that Vadik Bely is on his own?
By the way, one of the types of business of the heroin mafia in the Russian Federation is “drug barter” - the exchange of heroin for cocaine. In South America, heroin is not produced, but cocaine is in bulk. Therefore, the “Brotherly Circle” exchanges gerych for coke among Colombians and Mexicans, and everyone is happy: an assortment of drugs for every taste on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 2018, if you remember, there was a scandal with the supply of cocaine to Russia through the Russian Embassy in Argentina. This channel was closed thanks to the operation of the DEA and the Argentine police against the Sinaloa cartel. They tracked the movement of their cocaine across South America, until one of the parties was suddenly brought ... to a school at the Russian Embassy.
So the working version of the investigation in Argentina is just that it was a drug barter. The Sinaloa cartel received heroin from Russia, paid with cocaine, which was registered as diplomatic mail and taken out by military aircraft that periodically fly to Argentina and Uruguay.
And here we come to a very important observation, friends: and not only in Venezuela, the mafia has grown together with the state.
After all, the scheme with embassy cocaine requires, to put it mildly, the coordination of crime in the Russian Federation from a single center. The Foreign Ministry must give the go-ahead for the cocaine to be brought to the embassy and packaged as a "package" with a wax seal of the diplomatic post. The FSB must give the go-ahead - they supervise customs. The GRU must give the go-ahead, at the very least, for the drugs to be taken out by military aircraft. Of course, the gangsters must also work in tandem - those who buy heroin in Afghanistan, who buy cocaine in bulk in Russia and deliver it to end users.
Everyone, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the GRU to Vadik Bely and Gafur Cherny, must work harmoniously and together. For the final result - for common funds in offshores and syringes in the entrances. And they work. After all, whatever one may say, Putin is an outstanding figure. International organized crime.
8. Epilogue. The richest woman in Venezuela .
The mafia is a structure that is not adapted to govern the state. It is not a political party or even a commercial enterprise in the usual sense of the word. This is an informal association of a group of people for enrichment by illegal means. That is, to parasitize on society.
How exactly they parasitize - this is already on the circumstances. Maybe they are milking the budget or shaking tribute from merchants, or seizing other people's property, or creating artificial monopolies in the markets for themselves, killing competitors. These are the details. The main thing is that the mafia does all this for one thing only - to enrich a handful of godfathers at the top of the criminal pyramid.
Worms eat the body from the inside and will eat until they kill it, even if they themselves die in the process. Worms are parasites with reduced social responsibility. So is the mafia - it is naive to expect from it the construction of a welfare state in the interests of the majority of the people. The mafia is a structure for the enrichment of the minority, a bunch of thieves, by definition.
So the mafia state of Chavez-Maduro led to a fantastic enrichment of a handful of freaks at the top with complete poverty and chaos below.
Meet Maria Gabriela Chavez , daughter of Chavez. The richest woman in Venezuela with a fortune of $ 4.2 billion . The average salary in Venezuela today is $2. Per month. Plus $5 food stamps.
Venezuela, 2015 City of Maracaibo (1.6 million inhabitants). The queue to buy coupons for milk and rice. The mass riots of 2019 are still four years away.
When he was president, Mashka Chavez's dad could talk for hours about social justice and damned America. Along the way, making money on oil and cocaine. Doesn't remind you of anyone, does it?
