Internal Security Dynamics

December 10, 2018 Crime , OTHER

AFP photo

By

Ricardo Swire

Trends show the principal Caribbean security threat continues to be the vast amounts of transiting cocaine, flowing northward from South America, heroin and marijuana smuggling also key concerns. A novel “first world” opioid crisis and prescription drugs diversion are notable regional black-market stimulators. Counternarcotics enforcement units on the US “Third Border” face a constant flurry of heavily armed transnational traffickers.

On November 25, 2018 officers from the Corps of Investigative & Criminal Investigations (CICPC), Venezuela’s largest police agency, intercepted one thousand and twenty kilos of cocaine. Five traffickers, four Colombians and one Venezuelan, were detained. The consignment comprised nine hundred and twenty-seven parcels transported from Machiques in Zulia by truck, to Inns in the coastal city of Barcelona Anzoategui, Venezuela.

Reports noted the drugs were destined to be warehoused on select Caribbean islands for onward travel to the USA. CICPC enforcers also seized two vehicles, several mobile phones and related documents. On November 21, 2018 the Anzoategui State Police intercepted two hundred and thirty-six marijuana packages. The consignment was concealed aboard a passenger bus travelling between Caracas and Carupano on Venezuela’s eastern coast in the state of Sucre.

On November 10, 2018 the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) stopped eight hundred and thirty-nine marijuana packages and sixty-two cocaine parcels. The fourteen kilos of marijuana were found on the vehicle’s back seat covered by a sheet of cloth. The sixty-one kilos of cocaine were hidden in the vehicle’s boot. Two male traffickers, one a retired GNB Sergeant-Major, were arrested for transporting the drugs in a black Ford Expedition SUV via the Moja Casabe district of Miranda town in Anzoategui.

According to Venezuela’s Eastern Integral Defence Strategic Region (REDIOR) Commander, more than two tons of drugs were seized in Anzoategui state so far in 2018. During November traffickers successfully escaped with in excess of one ton of drugs. The recent seizures coincide with discoveries of secret airstrips and interception of two narco-planes in the rural area of Guarico that borders the states of Apure and Anzoategui. A clear demonstration of tenacity and ingenuity transnational traffickers employ to dispatch large quantities of drugs from Colombia via Venezuela to Honduras, Mexico and Caribbean islands.