How Counterfeit Dollars Have Overrun Venezuela

By artappraiser on Sun, 10/15/2023 - 9:53pm |

In Venezuela, inflation has rendered the bolivar worthless and strengthened the demand for counterfeit US dollars, and criminal groups in Colombia and Peru are more than happy to provide them. https://t.co/XH2zB7ahxn
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) October 16, 2023

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https://insightcrime.org/news/how-counterfeit-dollars-have-overrun-venezuela/

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It's decided: With a overwhelming 93% of votes in this primary, opposition figure and @VenteVenezuela leader María Corina Machado will represent the pro-democracy opposition in the upcoming presidential elections in #Venezuela

Recent polls have her at 79% over Maduro with 19% https://t.co/LQech39jCm
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) October 23, 2023

by artappraiser on Mon, 10/23/2023 - 9:54pm

#NewInvestigation | Tren de Aragua: From Prison Gang to Transnational Criminal Enterprise https://t.co/FqFYllPf10
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) October 5, 2023

by artappraiser on Mon, 10/23/2023 - 11:29pm

5️⃣ Venezuelan gang leaders are fleeing abroad to evade police pressure, while their organizations continue to run extortion rackets in Venezuela. What can other countries in the region do to tackle this security threat? https://t.co/Tu9xT4lFgY
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) October 23, 2023

by artappraiser on Mon, 10/23/2023 - 11:36pm

Venezuela’s Most Wanted List Notable for Its Absences

2️⃣ Leaders of Zulia-based extortion gangs were included on the government’s most wanted list. But leaders of much more powerful organizations, such as the ELN, were conspicuous by their absence. More information here: https://t.co/HBpBAlAh21
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime) October 23, 2023

by artappraiser on Mon, 10/23/2023 - 11:43pm

Huge cyber leak offers new proof of how Maduro has turned Venezuela into a narco-state

BY ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO AND VALENTINA LARES UPDATED NOVEMBER 06, 2023 11:21 AM

@ Miami Herald

Caption: A Cartel of the Suns organizational chart produced by the
U.S. Justice Department
A massive leak of confidential Colombian records adds to the mounting evidence that Venezuela’s military and government elite, not content with plundering the nation’s oil wealth, are now increasingly focused on milking a different profit center: Cocaine. The role of the military in relation to the drug trade has shifted from looking the other way in exchange for taking bribes to one of active player, according to leaked documents obtained by the Herald and its reporting partners, bolstered by interviews with former members of the Caracas regime, U.S. officials and others.

“They are the ones that are in charge now, directly involved in the transportation of cocaine, the distribution of cocaine, not only to the United States, but also to Europe,” Mike Vigil, former chief of International Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said of the Venezuelan military. This reality is part of the backdrop to what could conceivably be a thaw in frigid relations between the United States and Venezuela.

READ MORE: Explore the NarcoFiles project

Caption: Among the ways drugs are transported from Venezuela
to Central America is by air, as this U.S. Justice Department
illustrates.
In hopes of fostering stability in Venezuela, the Biden administration this past month offered an easing of sanctions contingent on President Nicolás Maduro holding free and fair elections, which for him would be a first. The initiative comes after a year in which Venezuelans, driven by social and economic upheaval, have poured into the United States, seeking asylum after making a long trek over land and across the Rio Grande. The influx has strained immigration and social services.

Biden’s move has outraged some Republicans, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who called it “granting legitimacy to a criminal dictatorship.” This article is being published in conjunction with the “NarcoFiles: The New Criminal Order,” a transnational journalistic investigation into global organized crime, its innovations, its tentacles, and those who fight it.

The project, led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in partnership with Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística, began with a massive leak of documents from the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office. The leak was shared with the Miami Herald and 40 other media outlets around the world. Reporters sifted through the trove of documents, corroborating information through interviews and other independent reporting. [....]

by artappraiser on Tue, 11/07/2023 - 10:39am

How Counterfeit Dollars Have Overrun Venezuela

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