Dos altos funcionarios venezolanos que enfrentan cargos por narcotráfico en Estados Unidos fueron acusados de recibir pagos de traficantes de narcóticos y de ponerlos sobre aviso ante redadas de drogas, según una persona con conocimiento del caso.

Néstor Reverol, jefe de la Guardia Nacional de Venezuela, y Edylberto Molina, quien se desempeñó como subdirector de la agencia antidrogas venezolana ONA y que actualmente es agregado militar en la embajada de Venezuela en Alemania, son mencionados en una imputación que los fiscales están preparando para dar a conocer, dijeron a Reuters personas cercanas al caso.

Medidas para obstruir investigaciones antidrogas
Además de poner sobre aviso a los traficantes ante redadas de drogas, ambos funcionarios han sido acusados de tomar otras medidas para obstruir investigaciones antidrogas, dijo la persona a Reuters el miércoles.

Reverol, ex jefe de la agencia antinarcóticos de Venezuela, sería uno de los funcionarios venezolanos de mayor rango que estaría enfrentando cargos por drogas en Estados Unidos. El funcionario no pudo ser contactado para hacer comentarios.

Reverol había rechazado las acusaciones de Estados Unidos de que Venezuela no ha logrado frenar los envíos de drogas ilícitas y ha promocionado el éxito del Gobierno en tomar medidas enérgicas contra el flujo de cocaína desde la vecina Colombia.

Sin comentarios
La embajada de Venezuela en Berlín no respondió a un correo electrónico solicitando información de contacto de Molina. El diplomático se desempeñó como general en la Guardia Nacional, la rama de las fuerzas armadas venezolanas que controlan las fronteras.

Un funcionario de la Guardia Nacional no pudo ser contactado para comentar el asunto. En tanto, un funcionario del Ministerio de Información dijo que la cartera no tenía comentarios sobre Reverol.

La imputación, que debe ser ratificada en una corte federal de Brooklyn en Nueva York, se produce en momentos en que Estados Unidos investiga la presunta participación de altos mandos del venezolanos en el tráfico de cocaína.

Publicación original:

Venezuela May Have Indirectly Aided U.S. Inquiry of Official

For five long years, American investigators have suspected that Néstor Reverol, the former head of Venezuela’s antidrug unit, was working as a kind of double agent.

Even as he publicly trumpeted his exploits against crime groups, Colombian drug runners were telling investigators a different story: that Mr. Reverol had been taking bribes from the trafficking groups he was supposed to demolish.

Now, American prosecutors are preparing to announce their charges against Mr. Reverol, the sort of explosive accusations that make the authorities in Venezuela fire back that the United States is lying to undermine their leftist government.

Yet in an unexpected twist, key information in the case may have come from the Venezuelan government itself.

Amid the feuds between Washington and Caracas, a number of Colombian drug traffickers have been captured in Venezuela and extradited to Colombia. But rather than being tried there, some were then extradited again — this time to the United States, where they have become informers against their Venezuelan associates.

The double extraditions played a role in gathering information in the indictment of Mr. Reverol, a top general now leading the country’s National Guard, who American prosecutors say was on the payroll of the drug cartels, according to a person familiar with the case.

Mr. Reverol’s name is the latest tied to drug and corruption charges that have made the difficult relationship between the United States and Venezuela even worse.

A former intelligence chief of Venezuela is also wanted in the United States, accused of being on the payroll of Colombian drug traffickers, as are several former police officers. Diosdado Cabello, the departing head of the National Assembly in Venezuela, is under investigation in a money laundering case.

And in November, federal prosecutors charged two nephews of Cilia Flores, the wife of President Nicolás Maduro, with conspiring to transport 800 kilograms of cocaine, or more than 1,700 pounds, to the United States.

In recent years, American investigators say, Venezuela has turned into a global hub for drugs, principally cocaine, destined for the United States. Colombian trafficking groups have long taken advantage of the porous border between the two countries and weak law enforcement.

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But many of the cartels arrive from Colombia lacking the local contacts they had on their side of the border. That’s where, according to the person familiar with Mr. Reverol’s case, the head of the antidrug unit fit in.

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Diosdado Cabello is the departing chief of the National Assembly in Venezuela. Credit Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
“The way for them to succeed in Venezuela was to start bribing Venezuelan officials,” said the person, who asked not to be named because the charges against Mr. Reverol were not yet public.

In exchange for bribes, Mr. Reverol repeatedly called off investigations, hindered inquiries of traffickers and warned them where officers were operating, according to the person.

Venezuelan officials did not directly address reports that Mr. Reverol was under indictment, but they did carry out a campaign defending the general, mostly through a series of Twitter posts, including ones highlighting his actions to arrest or disrupt drug traffickers.

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On Tuesday during his weekly television program, Mr. Maduro repeated accusations he has made before: that the American embassy has tried to recruit soldiers and military officers to take part in a destabilization campaign.

“They attack our military chiefs, military leaders, because the gringo embassy has not been able to recruit a single military chief, a single military leader, even though they try, launching campaigns here and there,” Mr. Maduro said, using an epithet for Americans as he urged the military to keep up its morale.

Arrests of several major Colombian drug trafficking suspects operating in Venezuela occurred while Mr. Reverol was head of the National Antidrug Office, the Venezuelan counterpart to the Drug Enforcement Administration. In some cases, Venezuela and the United States worked together.

Then in 2012, Diego Pérez Henao, a leader of the Rastrojos drug gang, was arrested in Venezuela and extradited to Colombia. From there, he was sent on to the United States. Also in 2012, Luis Enrique Calle Serna, known as Comba, another important member of the Rastrojos, negotiated his surrender directly to American authorities in Panama.

“Comba, who with his Rastrojos was working very deeply in Venezuela, turned himself in and made an agreement with the U.S. justice system,” said Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, a research organization.

Mr. McDermott said that a “Who’s Who” of Colombian traffickers operating in Venezuela had been captured and extradited to the United States, where they appeared to have spilled their secrets to investigators.

Even when they cooperated, however, relations between Venezuela and the United States were strained. They soured after Hugo Chávez, a leftist, was elected president in 1998, and in particular after a short-lived 2002 coup against him that had the tacit support of the Bush administration.

Mr. Chávez said he was suspending cooperation with the D.E.A. in 2005, accusing it of spying and even acting as a drug trafficker.

Mr. Chávez kicked out the American ambassador to Venezuela in 2008, accusing the United States of backing a group of coup plotters. The United States responded by expelling the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington.

The tensions have continued under Mr. Maduro, who has kicked out American embassy officials, accusing them of plotting against his government. He has frequently accused Washington of conspiring against him and supporting plots to kill him.

Efforts to repair relations have repeatedly fizzled. The most recent occurred this year when Secretary of State John Kerry dispatched a top adviser, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., to meet with Venezuelan officials, including Mr. Maduro.

While those talks did not lead to significant changes, the situation appears to have cooled. Mr. Maduro remained silent after his wife’s nephews were arrested in Haiti in November and sent to New York to face charges of conspiring to ship cocaine to the United States.

Mr. Maduro has also had a complicated relationship with Colombia. This year, he deported hundreds of Colombians living in Venezuela, shut the border and accused the government of President Juan Manuel Santos of taking part in plots against him. He said that paramilitary drug gangs on the border were seeking to kill him and destabilize the economy.

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But Mr. Santos has largely sought smoother relations with Venezuela, tapping its government to help efforts to negotiate a peace deal with Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The FARC operates extensively along the border and received support from the Chávez government. The United States has accused several top Venezuelan officials of aiding the FARC’s drug trafficking operations.

Mr. McDermott, of InSight Crime, said that American prosecutors may be focusing more intensely on Venezuela because drug trafficking there has changed.

For many years, investigators believed that Venezuelan military and police officers were on Colombian traffickers’ payrolls, providing them information about investigations and protection for drug shipments.

“There has been a change in the nature of the role of the Venezuelans,” he said. “They have moved from facilitators to drug traffickers in their own right.” He added, “Nowadays we believe the Venezuelans are buying and selling their own shipments.”

He also said that a boom over the last year in Colombia in the planting of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, would likely lead to a surge in the amount of the drug moving through Venezuela.

New York Time