AP obtains documents showing Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodrguez has been on DEA's radar for years [View all]
Source: Associated Press
When President Donald Trump announced the audacious capture of Nicolás Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., he portrayed the strongman’s vice president and longtime aide as America’s preferred partner to stabilize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, corruption and economic mayhem. Left unspoken was the cloud of suspicion that long surrounded Delcy Rodríguez before she became acting president of the beleaguered nation earlier this month.
In fact, Rodríguez has been on the radar of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for years and in 2022 was even labeled a “priority target,” a designation DEA reserves for suspects believed to have a “significant impact” on the drug trade, according to records obtained by The Associated Press and more than a half dozen current and former U.S. law enforcement officials.
Rodríguez’s name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, several of which remain ongoing, involving agents in field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York, the AP learned. The AP could not determine the specific focus of each investigation.
Rodríguez, 56, worked her way to the apex of power in Venezuela as a loyal aide to Maduro, with whom she shares a deep-seated leftist bent stemming from her socialist father’s death in police custody when she was only 7 years old. Despite blaming the U.S. for her father’s death, she steadily worked while foreign minister and later vice president to court American investment during the first Trump administration, hiring lobbyists close to Trump and even ordering the state oil company to make a $500,000 donation to his inaugural committee.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/delcy-rodriguez-donald-trump-venezuela-drugs-maduro-70ffbe17378fe0fa9b7f12a40e07b2f3
Who knew you could stave off drug trafficking investigations AND an almost certain overthrow/arrest/imprisonment by giving $500K to Trump's inauguration committee?
OK, pretty much everyone.
You kinda gotta wonder what María Corina Machado thinks about this, in the aftermath of her giving up her. Nobel medal to Orange Jesus. If only she'd brought crypto instead.
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