Hugo Carvajal, Venezuela’s former head of military intelligence, also known as “El Pollo” or The Chicken, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the United States.
US officials accused the 65-year-old of being a member of a drug-smuggling ring comprised of high-ranking Venezuelan military personnel.
The guilty plea is the latest twist in Carvajal’s downfall from feared spymaster to felon following his humiliating arrest in a Madrid hideout, when he was identified despite wearing a fake moustache and wig.
Carvajal, a close associate of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is said to have important information regarding Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.
According to a statement released by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Carvajal was a member of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), named after the suns that appear on the epaulettes of high-ranking officers in the Venezuelan military. Carvajal was scheduled to stand trial in the coming days.
“For years, he and other officials in the Cartel de Los Soles used cocaine as a weapon – flooding New York and other American cities with poison,” according to a statement.
It went on to say that he collaborated with left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in neighbouring Colombia, whom he provided with weapons and shielded cocaine shipments to the United States via Venezuela.
Carvajal received millions in cash in exchange, according to US Attorney Jay Clayton.
The fact that Carvajal altered his plea to “guilty” two years after denying all allegations levelled against him fuelled speculation that he may have struck a bargain for a reduced sentence in exchange for supplying embarrassing information about Maduro’s government.
The United States charged Maduro with “narco-terrorism” five years ago and put sanctions on him and his inner entourage.
Maduro has long accused the United States of attempting to destabilise him in order to acquire control of Venezuela’s oil reserves, and he claims that the charges against him are part of their efforts to remove him from office.
Carvajal, a former spy head, is said to have access to a lot of information concerning the present and previous Venezuelan governments.
His relationship with Maduro deteriorated in 2017, when anti-government rallies, which Carvajal supported, swept the country.
They fully broke down in 2019, when he pushed the military to support opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s bid to depose Maduro.
When the military continued to support Maduro, Carvajal escaped to Spain.
After several years on the run, he was apprehended in a flat in Madrid and extradited to the United States.
