Hugo Carvajal pleaded guilty to four criminal numbers, including narcoterism conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine.
According to the Justice Department, Venezuela’s military intelligence director pleaded guilty to charges of drug trafficking and narcotelism in US federal court.
Hugo Carballar, who served as President Hugo Chavez’s government president from 2004 to 2011, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday to four detectives including conspiracy to narcoterism and conspiracy to import cocaine and arms fees.
Federal prosecutors allegedly led a drug cartel, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan government and military officials, that the former general had led a drug cartel that had attempted to “inundate” with cocaine.
The cartel once deemed the US as a “terrorist” organization and partnered with the Colombian Revolutionary Army (FARC), a now-mobilized armed group, to produce and distribute cocaine, prosecutors argued.
In a letter to the defense attorney this week, prosecutors said they believe the federal sentencing guidelines require a 65-year-old to fulfill their minimum 50-year obligations in prison.
“The deep and troubling reality is that Jay Clayton, interim US lawyer in Manhattan, said in a statement.
“El Polo”
The nickname, known in Spanish as “El Polaro,” “Chicken,” took part in the failed coup in 1992, raising Chavez to political prominence, and is considered one of the most powerful figures in the 1999-2013 rules of the Socialist Leader.
After that, Carbajal served as a diplomat representing the current Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, before breaking him to support political opposition backed by the United States.
Carbajal was handed over from Spain to the US in July 2023, and the Justice Department has put in over a decade of effort to bring him into the US soil.
Carvajal’s ruling is scheduled for October.
