Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela is relying on illicit networks that range from drug traffickers to America’s adversaries to hold on to power, U.S. Southern Command’s Adm. Craig Faller said Thursday.
“The center of gravity for the Maduro regime’s illicit activities are Cuba, Russia, increasingly Iran,” Faller said on an Atlantic Council virtual discussion Thursday, describing activities that include illegal gold mining and sanctions evasion.
In April, President Trump authorized Faller to initiate an enhanced counternarcotics effort across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Ships and surveillance aircraft fanned out across the region, working with partner nations to seize drugs moving north and rob criminal organizations, including those connected to the Venezuelan government, of more than $1.5 billion in finances, estimated Southcom.
“All those threat vectors are headed in a negative direction, which is a significant reason why we have upped the amount of engagement,” Faller said, noting how strengthened intelligence sharing has helped stifle Venezuela.
But despite years of crippling sanctions, the International Crisis Group’s Phil Gunson told the Washington Examiner that the Venezuelan military still supports Maduro. Meanwhile, other pariah states practiced in evading U.S. sanctions have come to the rescue.
“They’re all here, of course,” Gunson said by phone from Caracas Friday. “The Iranians are making money.”
Maduro has reportedly transferred $500 million in gold bullion to Tehran as secret payment for unknown services.
In recent days, Venezuelan-bound tankers carrying gasoline from Iran were diverted to Houston by American authorities.
Gunson said the fuel is badly needed in Venezuela, which has seen mismanagement, corruption, and international sanctions strangle its petroleum industry, which has shrunk from 3 million barrels per day during the days of Hugo Chavez a decade ago to some 350,000 barrels a day.
“Every agreement that Venezuela has made with Iran has been subject to secrecy,” he said. “It’s very opaque.”
Gunson said the general consensus is that Iran has been contracted to help prop up Venezuela’s suffering refinery capacity and give the regime a lifeline.
As a sign of the increasing Iranian presence in Venezuela, Gunson said Iranian supermarkets and products are starting to spring up.
Faller said Venezuela has lured America’s adversaries to the hemisphere and threatens democracy in the region.
“It all points back to this larger web,” Faller said. “The transnational criminal organizations and narcoterrorists have thrived on corruption. External state actors also thrive on those same conditions.”
Inviting terrorists
Faller said Colombian paramilitary group ELN and the narcoterrorist group FARC have also found safe haven in Venezuela, threatening regional stability.
Gunson explained that the two groups, once nearly routed by the Colombian military with U.S. security assistance, are now reconstituting and increasing their ranks with Venezuelan recruits.
“In terms of a military threat, or a terrorist threat to the hemisphere, that’s the most real and evident,” he said. “There’s really no reason to think that they’re not going to be here for a very long time to come, regardless of any change of government.”
Gunson said the ELN and FARC, which are operating if not in coordination but in tacit agreement, are committed to maintaining the current regime, which allows their illicit activities to continue.
Maduro, in turn, needs them.
Gunson said an alliance between government forces and the ELN to remove mines in the Orinoco arc mining area has legitimized the presence of the dangerous group.
“It’s like using alligators to get rid of frogs,” he said. “You may get rid of frogs, but then you have to deal with the alligators.”
In a future, multinational effort to stabilize Venezuela, Gunson said while U.S. military forces are unwelcome, Southcom has much to offer a transitional government.
“They do have access to very, very good, hard information on what goes on in the Caribbean basin, in South America,” he said. “They potentially are a source of much, much better policy analysis, much better policy formation.”
For now, Faller said the international community can help force a change.
“The key going forward is how we can better share intelligence and how the international community can better leverage that to force and change the behavior of Maduro and the external state actors,” he said.
