It’s been a while since Venezuela’s anti-narcotics organisms have been having their alarms ringing. Now that the drug has been connected once again to the Bolivarian Government elites, it’s good to remember that the main airport in Caracas served as an aerial bridge for the largest Cartel in the hemisphere, the Chapo Guzmán’s. And it did it, surprising as it is, next to the presidential hangar.
One hand of the government of Nicolás Maduro does not even know what the other hand does in Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony that Morocco illegally annexed itself in 1975. While the Chavismo pledges solidarity to the Saharawi pro-independence movement of the Polisario Front, the Venezuelan state's petrochemical companies continue to buy from the invader valuable phosphate cargoes extracted from mines in the occupied territories.
It is one of the so-called "rare earth elements" and a strategic material for high-tech industry. It abounds in the south of Venezuela, next to the border with Colombia. And although the Venezuelan government announced in 2009 measures for the military control of the deposits, since then, international smuggling routes have flourished, in which drug trafficking and informal traders participate. In a climate of mystery, now the Venezuelan coltan also threatens to become a source of geopolitical conflicts.
Nearly 70 million of the state oil company insurance was in a limbo, which could well explain why the authorities did not collect any compensation for the explosion of the Amuay refinery.
Those in Venezuela are jurists that have revolving doors. Sooner or later they have been deputies, ministers or representatives of Bolivarian associations. This report presents the conclusions of a work of data journalism that crosses the names of all the country's criminal judges with the lists of the government party, and therefore indicates that 40% of them are of chavista militancy. Among the most prominent in this case are acolytes who condemned political prisoners like Araminta González and even the first lady’s son, Walter Gavidia Flores, who was in charge of a court until 2014.
Pequiven, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, sought shelter in tax havens to legalize its association with Iranian company National Petrochemical Company, from which Veniran emerged. Although the Panamanian law firm was suspicious of the alliance between the then presidents Hugo Chávez and Mahmud Ahmadinejad, it finally solved the inconvenience to please both clients.
