Diamonds, Guns And Dirty Money
Chavez's Venezuela: crime central. An article in the Los Angeles Times today details the rapidly increasing criminal activity in Venezuela. It has become a hub for criminal gangs trafficking in just about every criminal activity on the planet. It is getting much worse, very rapidly.
A nation at the crossroads of South America, the Caribbean, North America and Europe, Venezuela's location is ideal. Borders? Long, scantly populated and porous. Financial system? Large and with easy-to-evade governmental controls. Telecommunications, ports and airports? The best that oil money can buy. U.S. influence? Nil. Corrupt politicians, cops, judges and military officers? Absolutely: Transparency International ranked Venezuela a shameful 162 out of 179 counties on its corruption perception index. Chavez's demonstrated interest in confronting criminal networks during his eight years in power? Not much.
While this situation has so far been rather invisible to the rest of the world, it is patently clear to those in charge of fighting transnational crime. Anti-trafficking officials in Europe, the United States, Asia and other Latin American countries are paying unprecedented attention to Venezuela. These officials are not particularly interested in Venezuelan politics or in Chavez's policies. All they care about is that the tentacles of these global criminal networks are spreading from Venezuela into their countries with enormous power and at great speed.
The numbers speak volumes: About 75 tons of cocaine left Venezuela in 2003; it is estimated that 276 tons will leave the country this year. Before, the main destination was the United States; now, Europe is increasingly the target. Italy and Spain are two new important and lucrative end-user markets, and earning in euros is undeniably better than getting paid in dollars these days.
A senior Dutch police officer told me that he and his European colleagues are spending more time in Caracas than in Bogota, Colombia, and that the heads of many of the major criminal cartels now operate with impunity, and effectiveness, from Venezuela. The cartel bosses aren't exclusively Colombians — there are Asians (especially Chinese) and Europeans too. Caracas' most posh neighborhoods are home to important kingpins from around the world, including some from Belarus, a country that Chavez notably has visited several times.
There are vast amounts of money being laundered through Venezuela as well as trade in drugs, blood diamonds and even Iranian arms:
In Uruguay, an outraged legislator dropped this bombshell a few weeks ago: A group of Venezuelans had engineered the sale of Iranian arms and munitions to his country, using Venezuelan companies as a cover to bypass the U.N. embargo on Iran's arms trade. Likewise, the guerrillas in Colombia seem to have no trouble acquiring weapons — many of which come through Venezuela-based arms dealers.
I posted about the blood diamond issue earlier when Global Witness and Partnership Africa first broke that story wide open. I posted about the drug ties when the Washington Post ran an article on it. But the useful idiots of the West continue to go to Venezuela to fawn at the feet of Chavez. There will soon be interpretive dances about him, no doubt.
Crime, World news | Gaius November 10, 2007
By Chris, November 11, 2007 @ 7:47 am
Funny how the revolution always comes to resemble rampant puberty.
By TWR, November 12, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
The case of Uruguay is a bit more complex than the LA Times made it out to be. The shipment was of 15,000 bullets to be used in three Iranian made rifles (yes, there were only 3!) that the Uruguayan military had somehow acquired. The bullets were to be loaded onto the Uruguayan naval vessel ‘General Artigas’, which was returning home after dropping off troops in Haiti and conducting military exercises with Panama. There is no question that Venezuela was facilitating the transfer, but it is unclear whether or not Uruguay was even aware of the origin of the weaponry. Some suggest that the ‘bombshell’ dropped by the Uruguayan legislator Javier Garcia (of the opposition blancos) was a shrewd political move to make the Vazquez administration look inept and duplicitous. In any case, this is either a direct attempt by Iran to peddle arms in the US’ backyard or a case of Venezuelan opportunism trying to hock surplus military gear and trying to circumvent the UN embargo against Iran.