WASHINGTON — A jury found Venezuelan Carlos Orense Azócar guilty of weapons possession and drug trafficking that he sent to the United States with the help of senior officials and soldiers of the Chavista regime in Venezuela, the US Department of Justice reported this Wednesday.
According to the indictment and evidence presented during a two-week trial in NYstarting in 2003 Orense Azócar and “its drug trafficking organization distributed tons of cocaine.”
He sent it from Venezuela to Mexico, the Dominican Republic and other places using air and sea routes, the justice department says in a statement.
The convicted man stored the cocaine, as well as hundreds of weapons and thousands of cartridges, in underground warehouses on farms and ranches in Venezuela, and had clandestine landing strips from which he dispatched planes loaded with cocaine.
He also loaded cocaine on speedboats that left the Venezuelan coast to points in the Caribbean, such as the Dominican Republic.
Senior Chavismo officials involved
To distribute the cocaine, Orense Azócar “worked with and paid bribes” to “senior officials of the Venezuelan government, including generals and army officers, police commissioners and high-ranking officials of Venezuelan intelligence agencies,” the statement reads. note.
According to Washington, these connections assured him access to military weapons, protection against raids and the passage of cocaine convoys through checkpoints.
In addition, Orense Azócar “associated with guerrilla armed forces operating in Colombia and Venezuela to supply cocaine and guarantee the safe passage of their shipments,” Washington says.
“Orense Azócar and his drug trafficking organization used all available means, including high-powered weapons, government corruption and bribery, to safeguard their expansive operation and traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States,” denounced the director of the anti-drug agency of United States (DEA), Anne Milgram, cited in the note.
For years “he sent mountains of poison to this country and made millions of dollars from drugs, but it’s over (…) now he will face a possible life sentence behind bars,” added the federal prosecutor for the southern district. from New York, Damian Williams.
Source: With information from AP
