Venezuelan TV magnate indicted in Miami for high level bribery and money laundering

Venezuelan TV magnate indicted in Miami for high level bribery and money laundering Raul Gorrin, the owner of Globovision, is accused of paying $160 million to top Venezuelan government officials in return for allowing him to operate a corrupt foreign currency scheme.

DAVID ADAMS

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/venezuelan-tv-magnate-indicted-in-miami-for-high-level-bribery-and-money-laundering?hootPostID=de32931900cdccf13eaa40b571cead23

Prosecutors in South Florida unsealed a major corruption and money laundering indictment on Monday against Raul Gorrin the owner of a Venezuelan TV network with close ties to President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez.

Between 2008 and 2013, Gorrin used a company in Panama to pay $160 million in bribes to several unnamed senior government officials, including two high level Treasury Ministry officials, in order to protect a corrupt foreign currency scheme that netted hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the indictment.

The purpose of the conspiracy was “to enrich Raul Gorrin Belisario and co-conspirators by making and concealing corrupt payments to foreign officials in Venezuela in order to obtain and retain contracts with the Office of the National Treasury in that country,” the indictment alleges.

Discussions to arrange the bribes were held in South Florida and some of the payments were made from accounts in Switzerland to banks in the South Florida and New York, it adds, making the payments a crime under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Gorrin, who is co-owner of the pro-government Venezuelan TV network Globovision, allegedly used the money to buy three jets, a yacht, multiple champion horses, and numerous high-end watches in the South Florida and South Texas, also intended as bribes and paid with wire transfers from Swiss bank accounts.

The conspiracy involved Gorrin’s personal bank account at HSBC as well as a bank in the Dominican Republic. Other payments included purchase of a $1 million home security system in Caracas, home improvements and veterinary services including the transportation of horses in Wellington, Florida, a wealthy community in Palm Beach County known for its horse farms.

The indictment includes a list of 24 seized properties in South Florida and New York.

The U.S. government has for years targeted political corruption and dictatorial rule in Venezuela since for years, imposing sanctions on numerous top officials. Corruption took off after Chávez took power in 1999 and ushered in a new socialist era. Chávez died in 2013 from cancer, aged 58, and was replaced by his ardent disciple, Maduro.

Rich in oil, Venezuela is nonetheless submerged in its worst economic crisis in history, with hyperinflation and shortages of basic medicines causing a mass exodus of migrants to neighboring countries.

U.S. prosectors have likely missed their opportunity to arrest Gorrin, who owns a mansion in the wealthy Cocoplum neighborhood of Miami where he also keeps a yacht. But he has not been seen in Miami for several months. Active on social media, his recent posts indicate he has resided in Caracas for the last few months. attending his company events and working out at a gym.

Gorrín’s Cocoplum estate is on the market for $8 million. He also owns a plush Manhattan apartment worth close to $20 million and, according to court records.

The boli-bourgeosie

The Gorrin indictment appears to put an end to a series of laundering scheme in recent years that had turned south Florida into a popular playground for wealthy businessmen with ties to the Venezuelan government - known as "boliburgues," (short for Boli-bourgeoisie, a reference to Venezuela's socialist 'Bolivarian revolution,' named after independence leader, Simón Bolívar).

For years prosecutors were frustrated by concerns that the massive evidence of Venezuelan bribery and corruption was beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Their chief legal weapon, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, does not apply to foreign nationals unless they can be tied to U.S. entities for bribery crimes that take place outside of the United States.

"They got away with it for so long that they thought they were untouchable”

“The US government is basically saying enough is enough,” said one Miami lawyer familiar with the case. "They are sending a message with this case that they have come to the conclusion that this is all money laundering and the proceeds of corruption.”

Many of the alleged money laundering activities involved meetings with alleged conspirators in Miami, as well as investments in Florida real estate and other assets.

“They got too cocky. They were doing deals in Miami despite the risk of falling foul of US law. It was the height of arrogance. They got away with it for so long that they thought they were untouchable,” the lawyer said.

'Operation Money Flight'

The indictment of Gorrin and the three other officials comes on the heels of another major indictment of Venezuelans accused in July of laundering $1.2 billion of embezzled public money through Florida real estate. That case involved a senior executive at a Swiss bank in Panama, Matthias Krull, who pleaded guilty to his role in a laundering scheme involving the state-owned oil company PdVSA, on behalf of president Maduro and his three stepsons.

Gorrin was also accused in the laundering scheme, though he was not directly named in court documents. His lawyer at the time, Howard Srebnick, denied his client was involved in any wrongdoing. Srebnick did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

That case, dubbed Operation Money Flight, lifted the lid on decades of mind-boggling public corruption by senior officials in Venezuela's socialist government.

Banker pleads guilty in $1.2 billion Venezuela money laundering case - Alejandro Andrade

The former finance chief of Venezuela’s state oil company pleaded guilty last month to participating in the embezzlement scheme. Appearing in a Miami federal court, Abraham Ortega promised to fully cooperate with prosecutors, making him the highest-ranking Venezuelan official ever to do so.

The two unnamed officials in the Gorrin indictment are identified only as 'Foreign Official 1' and 'Foreign Official 2', who both held high level posts "with decision-making authority and influence within the ONT; the Venezuelan National Treasury." Foreign Official 1 is described as holding that position between 2007 and 2010, and Foreign Official 2 between 2011 and 2013.

Foreign Official 1 is widely assumed to be Alejandro Andrade, 54, a former a bodyguard to Chávez who rose to become one of the most trusted members of his inner circle and head the ONT between 2007 and 2010. After leaving public office he moved to Florida where he owns a large home and horse stables in Palm Beach County. His lawyer did not return messages seeking comment.

The description of Foreign Official 2 matches Andrade’s successor as National Treasurer, Claudia Díaz. A former military nurse who took care of Chávez as he battled cancer, she is currently under house arrest in Spain facing extradition to Venezuela on public corruption charges. Venezuela has also requested the extradition of her husband, Adrián Velásquez Figueroa, a former head of the presidential security guard.

"This smells like Chávez's money": how offshore Panama firm reacted to documents of couple close to Venezuela’s ex-president

Florida horses

Andrade has long been the focus of speculation about his wealth after he moved to Florida when he left public office in 2010. He lives in Wellington, a wealthy community in Florida horse country west of Palm Beach, in a 9,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms, set in six acres with a large barn for 60 horses.

Andrade is well known in the horse community in Wellington, and his son Emanuel Andrade “is one the hottest young talents in the sport of show jumping,” according to the public relations firm, Starting Gate Communications. Andrade is also a partner in a South Carolina farm that raises show horses and sponsors equestrian competitions.

Companies in Venezuela Corruption

This are the companies related with the Venezuelan corruption where Raul Gorrin is related:

• Atlantic
• Servinvest
• Halifax Group
• Whyymper
• Multiseft Trade

The information below was in twitter in 2015

Indicment Raul Gorrin - Venezuelan Mediam President - Globovision

Here is the indictment against Raul Gorrin y Perdomo - 18 pages - and people involucred:

- Raul Gorrin Belisario - Citizen of Venezuela, Coral Gables
- Foreign Official 1: Alejandro Andrade - between 2007 - 2010 - Alejandro Andrade
- Foreign Official 2: Claudia Diaz - Hugo Chavez nurse
- Co-Conspirater: Adrian Velasquez - Claudia Diaz's husband
- Foreign Bank Official: Gabriel Jimenez Aray - Banquero Venezolano - Banco Peravia

Here the indictment - Link

Raul Gordin Belisario

Alejandro Andrade

Raul Gorrin Properties

Chavistas in the USA

Me indigna el doble discurso de obligar a los demas a vivir en las penurias socialistas, mientras ellos saborean las mieles del capitalismo.

To me is indignant at is a double discourse of forcing others to live in the socialist hardships, while they savor the honeys of capitalism.

Chavistas in the USA: Alicia Monroy Carmona

Alicia Monroy Carmona and her husband Alejandro Osorio:
Put in prison Judge Afiuni Mora
It is a paralegal now in Florida, USA and works for Aventura Real Paralega en Florida.
Lives in El doral o Weston or Pembroke Pines.

In secret recording, Venezuelan general pushes for snipers to control demostrators

In secret recording, Venezuelan general pushes for snipers to control demonstrators
Miami Herald
May 18th, 2017
BY ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO AND SONIA OSORIO
adelgado@elnuevoherald.com

Claiming to be primed for civil war, a Venezuelan general issued orders to prepare for the future use of snipers against anti-government protesters, according to a secret recording of a regional command meeting held three weeks ago at a military base in the northwestern Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto.

On the recording, obtained from a Washington source that has provided el Nuevo Herald with information on Venezuela for previous stories, the generals discuss the legality and risks of using snipers during the massive demonstrations taking place almost daily against President Nicolás Maduro.

The military, however, insists publicly that it is not using lethal force against demonstrators, a claim that was repeated on Wednesday by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.

The meeting, chaired by Division General José Rafael Torrealba Pérez, took place in the last week of April as Venezuela’s socialist government continued to try to contain the unrest. Local news reports said at least four demonstrators were killed by gunfire this week, raising the death toll to at least 42, with more than 700 wounded.

“Begin to make preparations with those individuals that can serve as snipers, beginning with psychological and aptitude tests” to make sure the unit commanders are in control of them, Torrealba instructed the military gathering. Torrealba is head of the Lara-state based Integral Defense Operational Zone (ZODI), one of several regional military operational zones.

The generals at the meeting included representatives of the army, air force and national guard, according to the Washington source.

“There will come a time when we will have to employ them [the snipers] and I want us to be ready for the moment that we have to employ them because the president will not remain at a green [preparation] phase, gentlemen,” Torrealba said, a likely reference to Maduro’s activation of the Zamora Plan, a war plan to be activated in the midst of imminent foreign invasion. “He [Maduro] has already signed a range of operations and as I said here [previously] … we could be at the beginning of a subversive urban war.”

The recording of Torrealba’s voice matches the one appearing in videos of his public speeches available on YouTube. His voice also was identified by the Washington source that supplied the tape to el Nuevo Herald.

Some of the others present were National Guard Brigadier General Hernán Enrique Homez Machado, Air Force Brigadier General Carlos Enrique Quijada Rojas, Army Brigadier General Dilio Rafael Rodríguez Díaz, Army Brigadier General Joel Vicente Canelón and Army Brigadier General Iván Darío Lara Lander, according to the source that provided the recordings to el Nuevo Herald. El Nuevo Herald could not independently verify their presence at the meeting.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article151329772.html#storylink=cpy

Venezuela is not longer a democracy

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/220426/oas-chief-almagro-%E2%80%98venezuela-is-no-longer-a-democracy%E2%80%99
WASHINGTON — The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, openly denounced corruption and violence in Venezuela yesterday, saying a 14-year prison term for an opposition leader there marked the “end of democracy” in the country.
In an eight-page open letter to hardline Popular Will leader Leopoldo López, Almagro criticized Venezuela’s climate of “intimidation.”
The OAS chief also denounced threats against those working to recall left-wing President Nicolás Maduro.
“No regional or subregional forum can ignore the reality that today in Venezuela there is no democracy or rule of law,” Almagro said, calling López a “friend.”
“Under no circumstances should power be used... to prevent the sovereign will of the people from being expressed.”
The former Uruguayan foreign minister said Venezuelans are a “victim of bullying.”
The Venezuelan government “seeks to maintain its power and deny the people the right to make decisions through voting, by resorting to violence against those who demonstrate or hold other opinions,” Almagro said.
“It has crossed a line, which means it is the end of democracy.”
On August 12, Venezuela’s court of appeals upheld a 14-year sentence for López that was handed down after a closed-door trial. The sentence was strongly condemned by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States.
López, one of Maduro’s most hardline opponents whose stance has excacerbated divisions among the opposition coalition, had repeatedly declared himself innocent of the crime for which he was convicted — inciting violence at anti-government protests in 2014 that left 43 dead.
Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is gripped by recession that has contributed to severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods that have triggered violence and looting.
Maduro blames the recession on wealthy business magnates and “imperialist foes” he says are conspiring against his government.
The opposition is racing to force a referendum to recall Maduro from office, blaming him for the crisis and mishandling the state-led economy.
According to the Constitution, a successful recall vote this year would trigger a presidential election that the opposition would likely win. But an opposition victory in a recall referendum next year would result only in Vice-President Aristóbulo Istúriz — a Socialist Party stalwart — replacing Maduro until his term ends in early 2019.
Election officials already stretched out the first phase of the recall effort — verifying submitted signatures from one percent of voters to authorize the second petition drive — into a months-long ordeal.
The government has been accused of dragging its feet while stopping short of actually denying the recall effort.
Earlier this month, 15 members of the OAS called on Venezuela to act “without delay” to clear the way for the election.
Almagro recently branded Maduro a “petty dictator” and in an ongoing war of words said Venezuela had suffered an “alteration of constitutional order” and called for OAS members to invoke Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to suspend the country from the bloc, the issue remains under review.

U.S. agents arrest members of Venezuelan President's family in Haiti

U.S. agents arrest members of Venezuelan President's family in Haiti

By Kay Guerrero and Claudia Dominguez, CNN

Two members of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's family are arrested

A DEA source says they were arrested in Haiti as they prepared to finalize drug deal

One of the men was raised by Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores; the other one is her nephew (CNN)

U.S. federal agents have detained two members of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's family in Haiti, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration source who participated in the arrest.

The two men, identified as Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores Freites, were arrested Tuesday night in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince as they were preparing to finalize a deal that would have allowed them to transport 800 kilograms of drugs to the United States, the source said.

One of the men was raised by Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores; the other is her nephew.

Information about the arrest was corroborated by Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration who has contacts that are high-level federal law enforcement officials.

During the arrest, both men had Venezuelan diplomatic passports and openly identified themselves as the son and nephew of Flores, maintaining that they had diplomatic immunity, Vigil said.

CNN contacted Haitian authorities to ask about the arrest, but officials there said they were not involved in the raid. The Venezuelan government has not responded to requests for comment.

Maduro and Flores married in July 2013, several months after he was sworn in as Venezuela's President on the heels of the death of longtime leader Hugo Chavez.

But they'd been a couple for years, and both of them were members of Chavez' inner circle. During Chavez' final years in office, Maduro was vice president and foreign minister; Flores was the attorney general.

Now, rather than going by the title of first lady, Flores uses the term "first fighter" to describe her role.

CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.

Case against Venezuelan Leopoldo Lopez fabricated, ex-prosecutor says

Case against Venezuelan opposition leader fabricated, ex-prosecutor says

By Ray Sanchez, CNN

White House calls for the release of Leopoldo Lopez

Ex-prosecutor: Case against Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez "invented"

Government blamed Lopez for violence during 2014 protests, but security forces also accused (CNN)The Venezuelan government fabricated evidence against opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, said a former prosecutor who handled the case against the popular politician.

Ex-prosecutor Franklin Nieves, who fled Venezuela last week, told CNN en Español on Tuesday that "100% of the investigation was invented" around false evidence in a sham prosecution allegedly orchestrated by President Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello, the head of the National Assembly.

Lopez was sentenced last month to nearly 14 years in prison and immediately took to social media to say, "This sentence is not only against me, but it attempts to bring down the spirits of everyone who is fighting to have a better country," according to his verified Twitter account.

Nieves said in an interview that he received orders from government officials to arrest Lopez two days before a 2014 opposition march.

He told CNN's Fernando del Rincon, "They jailed him because they fear his leadership."

The former prosecutor said that "after examining each and every piece of evidence it was shown that this person had at no point made even a single call to violence."

Video from anti-government protests where Lopez spoke show him "always calling on his supporters to remain calm," Nieves said.

Witnesses made false statements against Lopez, who was not permitted to adequately defend himself, said Nieves.

Venezuela's Ministry of Communications and Information has not responded to CNN requests for comment, but the nation's ombudsman, Tarek William Saab, told CNN that Nieves should have made his allegations during the trial and not afterward and Venezuela's chief prosecutor, Luisa Ortega Diaz, denied that Nieves was pressured to go after Lopez.

But Nieves said that the actions against Lopez are not uncommon in Venezuela.

"There are innumerable cases in which people were investigated and innocent people detained," he said.

Nieves said he had not spoken out earlier "out of fear" and because of the "pressure exerted" by superiors to get prosecutors to act "on the whims" of the government.

Lopez's wife, Lilian Tintori, said Nieves' accusations highlight the state of justice of Venezuela.

"Justice has been kidnapped, with the regime's henchmen unfairly making accusations against, imprisoning, torturing and persecuting the leaders who represent hope in Venezuela," she said.

Nieves' comments come one week after defense attorneys for Lopez appealed the sentence against the 44-year-old economist.

Human rights activists and the U.S. government decried the sentence against Lopez.

The court said Lopez committed serious crimes, according to Venezuelan state news agency AVN -- public instigation, vandalism, arson and criminal conspiracy.

But legal proceedings were a sham, Human Rights Watch said.

"The baseless conviction ... exposes the extreme deterioration of the rule of law in Venezuela," the rights group said in a statement. "The trials involved egregious due process violations and failed to provide evidence linking the accused to a crime."

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson said last month that the conviction "deeply troubled" her and called on the Venezuelan government to protect democracy and human rights.

In a four-page letter after his sentencing, Lopez said he was writing from the military jail of Ramo Verde. He urged all Venezuelans to instigate a "democratic rebirth" by making their voices heard in the country's next parliamentary elections.

The accusations against Lopez stem from opposition street protests in February 2014 that turned deadly. Dozens of people were killed, and hundreds injured.

Maduro, the handpicked successor to the late President Hugo Chavez, blamed Lopez, accusing him of terrorism and murder. Lopez was already a strong government critic before Chavez's death in March 2013.

In 2008, Chavez's government banned Lopez, a former mayor, from running for office.

Venezuela set to sentence opposition leader Lopez

But much of the violence at the 2014 protests stemmed from security forces, which also arrested hundreds, Human Rights Watch said. Security forces were accused of torture and abuse.

"The government has also tolerated and collaborated with pro-government armed groups of civilians," the group said.

Lopez briefly went into hiding but then turned himself in to authorities. He used social media to rally supporters who met him on the occasion.

A court said last month that Lopez's involvement in protests was part of a plan for a coup d'etat.

In June, Lopez went on a 30-day hunger strike in prison to demand congressional elections. The government has agreed to the demand, and elections are scheduled for December.

CNN's Osmary Hernandez and Arthur Brice contributed to this report.

Let them eat Chavismo

Food and Venezuela
Let them eat Chavismo
The UN honours Venezuela for curbing hunger—which is actually getting worse

Jun 20th 2015

NEWS that the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had given Venezuela a diploma for its “notable and exceptional” efforts to curb hunger did not reach Joseína Rodríguez. Recently unemployed, and living with her family in a farm outhouse in the south-west of the country, she was too busy working out where her next meal was coming from.

“Joseína” (not her real name) helps run one of the community councils that are the building blocks of the “socialist revolution” set up by the late President Hugo Chávez. “Chávez used to say that with the revolution everything would keep getting better,” she sighs. “I don’t know why this president (his successor, Nicolás Maduro) hasn’t kept the promise.” Sitting on an upturned bucket in the dusty yard of a farm that was taken over (before Chávez) by its workers, she says she used to work making meals for her neighbours, but stopped “because they can’t pay the prices I have to charge.” Staples reaching her community via the main state-subsidised food network cover only 200 of the 1,000 families who are supposed to benefit.

The word “hunger” has been heard a lot in Caracas lately, mostly thanks to a hunger strike by Leopoldo López, the jailed opposition leader, and dozens of his supporters. Their demands—that political prisoners be freed, and a date set for parliamentary elections with foreign observers watching—have so far been ignored. This week some Brazilian senators were the latest senior foreign visitors to back the detainees.

So the UN plaudit was a relief for the government. According to the FAO, which presented the diploma on June 8th, Venezuela is one of 72 countries that have reached the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the percentage of their populations suffering from hunger. But the prize, based on government data up to 2012, comes amid growing evidence that the trend has reversed.

In his speech to the FAO, Vice-president Jorge Arreaza cited the government’s claim that 95% of Venezuelans eat three meals a day. But in a survey carried out last year by three leading universities, more than 11% said they ate just twice a day or less.   

The FAO said it saw no reason to doubt the statistics it used. But many of the numbers needed for a full evaluation have not been published for years. The central bank has issued no monthly inflation or food scarcity figures for 2015. In November, even by official accounts a minimum wage only bought 76% of the food required for the average family. Independent estimates suggest three-and-a-half minimum wages are now required. About 40% of those in work get the minimum wage or less.

Marianella Herrera, a nutritionist at the Fundación Bengoa, a private foundation, calls official data partial and inconsistent. “Other studies show an increase in malnutrition,” she says. “Children are showing up in hospital emergency wards with severe malnutrition, and some are dying because of a lack of basic supplies.” The government’s own figures, which show it reached the UN target for reducing malnutrition in children by 2008, indicate that by 2013 Venezuela was close to crossing the line again, in the opposite direction.

Joseína finds it a mercy that local authorities help where central agencies fail. “Last week they brought chicken, the week before it was milk.” Another lifeline comes from plantain from local farms and occasionally fish. Getting to a supermarket takes an hour and a half by motorcycle-taxi and bus; queues are long. “Sometimes when we get to the door, nothing is left.”

Letter to Peter Maurer - President of the International Committee of the Red Cross

Letter to Peter Maurer - President of the International Committee of the Red Cross

We understand that the Geneva Convention and its protocols are the cornerstone of international humanitarian law, actually our country face a system that has encouraged, and allowed, barbarism against civilians and militaries, 57 Venezuelans have been murdered protesting peacefully against the extermination laws, there are over 100 political prisoners. Right now, politicians and students prisoners have 150 hours in hunger strike demanding their immediate release.

We are writing this letter to you to urgently request to the Assembly and Council presence of the ICRC in Venezuela in order to visit and assist all political prisoners, students, tweeters and military victims of bloody repression, because you are guardians of international law. 

We think your visit will be the beginning of the end of the persecution and repression against Venezuelan citizens, in compliance with the Geneva Convention signed in 1949 , because today all our human rights in Venezuela are being violated.

We are young Venezuelans who are suffering constant repression attacks in the streets, in and out of our universities, workplaces and, we also fear the health of our friends who are unjustly deprived of their freedom, due to procedural delays, forcing their families to get naked (1), conducting violent searches, and subhuman prison spaces as "The Grave" and "The Tigrito".

Sending this letter we fear for our lives, and our families could be at risk for exposing the situation to you.

WE ASK THE PRESENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS IN VENEZUELA

Atte. Pacifist Movement ResistenciaV58
Caracas, June 2, 2015
@ResisteciaV58

(1) When someone visits them, the visitor, in many cases, is forced to get naked.

Venezuelan Officials Suspected of Turning Country into Global Cocaine Hub

Venezuelan Officials Suspected of Turning Country into Global Cocaine Hub
By José de Córdoba and Juan Forero
Wall Street Journal
May 18, 2015
U.S. prosecutors are investigating several high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including the president of the country's congress, on suspicion that they have turned the country into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the probes.
An elite unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington and federal prosecutors in New York and Miami are building cases using evidence provided by former cocaine traffickers, informants who were once close to top Venezuelan officials and defectors from the Venezuelan military, these people say.
A leading target, according to a Justice Department official and other American authorities, is National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, considered the country's second most-powerful man.
"There is extensive evidence to justify that he is one of the heads, if not the head, of the cartel," said the Justice Department official, speaking of a group of military officers and top officials suspected of being involved in the drug trade. "He certainly is a main target."
Representatives of Mr. Cabello and other officials didn't return phone calls and emails requesting comment. In the past, Venezuelan authorities have rejected allegations of high-ranking involvement in the drug trade as an attempt by the U.S. to destabilize the leftist government in Caracas.
In an appearance on state television Wednesday, Mr. Cabello said he solicited a court-ordered travel ban on 22 executives and journalists from three Venezuelan news outlets that he has sued for publishing stories about the drug allegations earlier this year. "They accuse me of being a drug trafficker without a single piece of evidence and now I'm the bad guy," Mr. Cabello said. "I feel offended, and none of them even said they're sorry."
The Obama administration isn't directing or coordinating the investigations, which are being run by federal prosecutors who have wide leeway to target criminal suspects. But if the probes result in publicly disclosed indictments of Mr. Cabello and others, the resulting furor in Venezuela would likely plunge relations between the two countries into their most serious crisis since the late populist Hugo Chávez took office 16 years ago.
"It would be seismic," said a U.S. official, of the expected Venezuelan reaction. "They will blame a vast right-wing conspiracy."
U.S. authorities say they are far along in their investigations. But they say any indictments that may result might be sealed, making them secret until authorities can make arrests-something that would be difficult if not impossible unless the suspects travel abroad.
The investigations are a response to an explosion in drug trafficking in the oil-rich country, U.S. officials say. Under pressure in Colombia, where authorities aggressively battled the drug trade with $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2000, many Colombian traffickers moved operations to neighboring Venezuela, where U.S. law-enforcement officials say they found a government and military eager to permit and ultimately control cocaine smuggling through the country.
"Most of the high-end traffickers moved to Venezuela in that time," said Joaquín Pérez, a Miami attorney who represents key Colombian traffickers who have acknowledged operating out of Venezuela.
Venezuela doesn't produce coca, the leaf used to make cocaine, nor does it manufacture the drug. But the U.S. estimates that nearly a third of the cocaine produced in other Andean countries, about 275 tons, now moves through Venezuela annually.
Prosecutors aren't targeting President Nicolás Maduro, who has been in power since Mr. Chávez's death two years ago. U.S. law-enforcement officials say they view several other Venezuelan officials and military officers as the de facto leaders of drug-trafficking organizations that use Venezuela as a launchpad for cocaine shipments to the U.S. as well as Europe.
'A Criminal Organization'
"It is a criminal organization," said the Justice Department official, referring to certain members of the upper echelons of the Venezuelan government and military.
Mildred Camero, who had been Mr. Chávez's drug czar until being forced out abruptly in 2005, said Venezuela has "a government of narcotraffickers and money launderers." She recently collaborated on a book, "Chavismo, Narcotrafficking and Militarism," in which she alleged that drug-related corruption had penetrated the state, naming more than a dozen officials, including nine generals, who allegedly worked with smugglers.
Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. said that they have accelerated their investigations in the past two years, a period that has seen Venezuela's economy worsen dramatically. Rampant crime has spiked, making Venezuela the continent's most violent country and spurring people to emigrate.
The deepening crisis has made it easier for U.S. authorities to recruit informants, say those working to enlist people close to top Venezuelan officials. Colombian and Venezuelan drug traffickers have also arrived in the U.S., eager to provide information on Venezuelan officials in exchange for sentencing leniency and residency, U.S. officials say.
"Since the turmoil in Venezuela, we've had greater success in building these cases," said a federal prosecutor from New York's Eastern District who works on Venezuelan cases.
In January, U.S. investigators made a major catch when naval captain Leamsy Salazar defected and was brought to Washington. Mr. Salazar, who has said he headed Mr. Cabello's security detail, told U.S. authorities that he witnessed Mr. Cabello supervise the launch of a large shipment of cocaine from Venezuela's Paraguaná peninsula, people familiar with the case say.
Mr. Cabello has publicly railed against his former bodyguard, saying he didn't head his security detail and calling him "an infiltrator" who has no proof of his involvement in drug trafficking. "Our conscience is totally clear," he said in a radio interview.
Rafael Isea is another defector who has been talking to investigators, people familiar with the matter say. A former Venezuelan deputy finance minister and governor of Aragua state, Mr. Isea fled Venezuela in 2013. People familiar with the case say Mr. Isea has told investigators that Walid Makled, a drug kingpin now in prison, paid off former Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami to get drug shipments through Venezuela.
Almost a year after leaving the country, Mr. Isea was accused of committing "financial irregularities" during his days as governor by Venezuela's attorney general, and by Mr. El Aissami, who succeeded him as governor of Aragua.
"Today, Rafael Isea, that bandit and traitor, is a refugee in Washington where he has entered a program for protected witnesses in exchange for worthless information against Venezuela," Mr. El Aissami said recently on Venezuelan television.
Mr. Isea has rejected the accusations as false, politically motivated and meant to discredit him.
In addition to Mr. El Aissami, other powerful officials under investigation include Hugo Carvajal, a former director of military intelligence; Nestor Reverol, the head of the National Guard; Jose David Cabello, Mr. Cabello's brother, who is the industry minister and heads the country's tax collection agency; and Gen. Luis Motta Dominguez, a National Guard general in charge of central Venezuela, say a half-dozen officials and people familiar with the investigations.
Calls and emails seeking comment from several government ministries as well as the president's office went unanswered. Some officials have taken to social media to ridicule the U.S. investigations. A Twitter account in the name of Gen. Motta Dominguez earlier this year said: "We all know that whoever wants his green card and live in the US to visit Disney can just pick his leader and accuse him of being a narco. DEA tours will attend to them."
Recruiting Defectors
To build cases, U.S. law-enforcement officials work with Venezuelan exiles and others to locate and recruit disaffected Venezuelans.
"We get people out of Venezuela, and we meet with them in Panama, Curaçao, Bogotá," said a former intelligence operative who works with U.S. officials to recruit and debrief Venezuelans who have evidence of links between Venezuelan officials and the drug trade.
Former Venezuelan military officers and others living outside the country provide help by contacting their former comrades and urging them to defect, the recruiter said. If the defector can provide useful information, the recruiter said, he is flown to the U.S. and a new life.
"What does the U.S. want?" said the recruiter, who has been working Venezuelan cases since 2008. "The U.S. wants proof, evidence of relations between politicians, military officers and functionaries with drug traffickers and terrorist groups."
Recently, at Washington's posh Capital Grille restaurant, a few blocks from Congress, a Venezuelan operative working with a U.S. law enforcement agency took a call from a middleman for a high-level official in Caracas seeking to trade information for favorable treatment from the U.S.
"Tell him I'll meet him in Panama next week," said the operative, interrupting a lunch of oysters and steak.
The biggest target is 52-year-old Mr. Cabello, a former army lieutenant who forged a close link in the military academy with Mr. Chávez when the two played on the same baseball team. When Mr. Chávez launched an unsuccessful 1992 coup, Mr. Cabello led a four-tank column that attacked the presidential palace in downtown Caracas.
Mr. Cabello has been minister of public works and housing, which also gave him control of the airports and ports, as well as minister of the interior and vice president. He was also president for a few hours in April 2002 when Mr. Chávez was briefly ousted in a failed coup.
Many analysts and politicians in Venezuela say they believe Mr. Cabello's power rivals that of Mr. Maduro and is rooted in his influence among Venezuela's generals.
Julio Rodriguez, a retired colonel who knows Mr. Cabello from their days at Venezuela's military academy, says that of 96 lieutenant colonels commanding battalions in Venezuela today, Mr. Cabello has close ties to 46.
The stocky and bull-necked Mr. Cabello, who often sports the standard Chavista uniform of red shirt and tri-color windbreaker in the red, yellow and blue of the Venezuelan flag, is host of a television program, "Hitting With the Sledge Hammer," on state television, in which he uses telephone intercepts of opponents to attack and embarrass them. Mr. Rodriguez said he believes Mr. Cabello will never make any kind of a deal with the U.S. "Diosdado is a kamikaze," he said. "He will never surrender."
U.S. investigators have painstakingly built cases against Venezuelan officials by using information gathered from criminal cases brought in the U.S. In Miami, people familiar with the matter say a key building block in the investigations involved a drug-smuggling ring run by Roberto Mendez Hurtado. A Colombian, Mr. Mendez Hurtado moved cocaine into Apure state in western Venezuela and, according to those familiar with his case, had met with high-ranking Venezuelan officials. The cocaine was then taken by boat or flown directly to islands in the Caribbean before reaching American shores.
Mr. Mendez Hurtado pleaded guilty in Miami federal court and received a 19-year prison term in 2014. People close to that investigation say that Mr. Mendez Hurtado and his fellow traffickers wouldn't have been able to operate without paying off a string of top military officers and government officials.
"The involvement of top officials in the National Guard and in the government of Venezuela in drug trafficking is very clear," said a former Venezuelan National Guard officer who served in intelligence and in anti-narcotics and left the country last year frightened by the overwhelming corruption he saw daily.
"Everyone feels pressured," he said. "Sooner or later everyone surrenders to drug trafficking."
In another case, in Brooklyn, prosecutors have learned about the intricacies of the drug trade in Venezuela after breaking up a cocaine-smuggling ring led by Luis Frank Tello,who pleaded guilty, court documents show. The cocaine was brought in across the border from Colombia and, with the help of National Guard officers, shipped north, sometimes from the airport in Venezuela's second-largest city, Maracaibo.
The U.S. investigations of Venezuelan officials have been going on for years, though investigators have sometimes been thwarted by politics.
In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department put three top aides to then-President Chávez on a blacklist and froze any assets they might have in the U.S. Among the three was Mr. Carvajal, known as "El Pollo," or the Chicken, then the head of military intelligence. The U.S. acted after extensive evidence surfaced earlier that year in the computers of a dead Colombian guerrilla commander of burgeoning cocaine-for-arms exchanges between the rebels and top Venezuelan generals and officials, according to the U.S. and Colombian governments.
In 2010, Manhattan prosecutors unsealed the indictment of Mr. Makled, the Venezuelan drug dealer accused of shipping tons of cocaine to the U.S. through the country's main seaport of Puerto Cabello, which he allegedly controlled. Mr. Makled, who had been captured in Colombia, boasted of having 40 Venezuelan generals on his payroll.
"All my business associates are generals," Mr. Makled said then to an associate in correspondence seen by The Wall Street Journal. "I'm telling you we dispatched 300,000 kilos of coke. I couldn't have done it without the top of the government."
DEA agents interviewed Mr. Makled in a Colombian prison as they prepared to extradite him to New York. But instead, Colombia extradited him in 2011 to Venezuela, where he was convicted of drug trafficking. This February, he was sentenced to 14 years and six months in jail.
Last July, American counter-drug officials nearly nabbed Mr. Carvajal, who had been indicted in Miami and New York on drug charges and detained in Aruba at the American government's behest. But Dutch authorities released him to Venezuela, arguing that he had diplomatic immunity.
Upon Mr. Carvajal's release, President Maduro praised the former intelligence chief as a dedicated anti-drug fighter who had set a worlds' record capturing drug capos.
The U.S. is also gathering information from bankers and financiers who handle the money for top Venezuelan officials. Since last year, people familiar with the matter say the U.S. government has revoked the visas of at least 56 Venezuelans, including bankers and financiers whose identities haven't been made public. Some have sought to cooperate with investigators in order to regain access to the U.S.
"They are flipping all these money brokers," said a lawyer who is representing two Venezuelan financiers who have had their visas revoked. "The information is coming in very rapidly.