I am no expert on Zulia and don't know what happened. But it is easy to frame hypotheses from available material. For example, photos of Soto's new truck with numerous 9mm bullet holes in the front window are
available. One or more of his passengers was also injured. Shots through the front window suggest the shooters were aiming at the front seat passenger or driver. But nothing I am aware of clarifies motive: is there credible reason to believe that Soto was targeted for his political views, or could the shooters have had some other intent in targeting the vehicle; for example, is it possible that Soto died in a drug-related hit, possibly as a result of mistaken identity? The latter is at least possible, as Maracaibo has been a popular international transhipment point for cocaine for many years
Student leader gunned down in Maracaibo
... Soto, who was driving his Trail Blazer truck, was accompanied by four students of Punto Fijo's LUZ unit ... Soto, 31, had just attended a swearing ceremony of the new authorities of LUZ. He was intercepted by at least two heavily armed men, according to José González, the chief of the local police department ... One of the .. students who accompanied Soto was injured. Hernán Chirinos, the president of Punto Fijo's LUZ student union was shot in one of his legs. According to González, two 9-mm weapons were used in the incident ...
http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/10/02/en_pol_esp_student-leader-gunne_02A2037527.shtmlOpposition student leader killed in Venezuela
Xinhua News Agency
October 2, 2008
The Venezuelan government has ordered an investigation into the fatal shooting of an opposition student leader, Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami said Wednesday. The Prosecutor General's Office put two special prosecutors in charge of the investigation ... Several other students who were with Soto at that time were injured ...
http://www.china.org.cn/international/news/2008-10/02/content_16560895.htmDrug-trafficking suspect will be tried in Venezuela
March 11, 2008
... Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco ..., arrested over the weekend in Venezuela by the nation’s intelligence police force, will be tried in Venezuela on drug trafficking, money laundering and false identity charges, Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said at a news conference Monday. Gonzalez, 48, has been indicted in New Jersey and New York federal courts on drug trafficking charges and is wanted in Colombia on suspicion of murder ... Gonzalez, whose 230-pound, 5-foot-5-inch frame earned him the nickname “Gordito,” or Fatso, was arrested Saturday at his ranch in Caja Seca, at the southern end of Lake Maracaibo ... He was born in the Guajiran border town of Maicao in Colombia, where dealing in contraband is a way of life for many. Gonzalez is believed to have turned to crime while serving in the so-called Guajira Peasants’ Self-Defense paramilitary and to have moved to Venezuela to manage the militia’s drugs-for-arms trade ...
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/11/world/fg-gordito11Colombia's New Generation of Paramilitaries Operates on Both Sides of Venezuelan Border
Posted by Dan Feder - December 19, 2007 at 7:44 am
... a report this week in a Venezuelan newspaper highlights the fact that .. Colombia’s paramilitary nightmare not ended .. has .. encroached onto its neighbor’s land and become a part of politics there ... The northwestern Venezuelan border states of Zulia and Táchira have become an important base of operations for the so-called “emergent groups,” most famously the network known as the “Black Eagles.” They are demobilized paramilitaries who have picked up their weapons again, recruited new soldiers and have no intention of giving up their political and criminal empire. On December 16, the Maracaibo, Zulia daily newspaper Panorama cited “sources trusted by both the Colombian and Venezuelan military” in a report claiming Maracaibo to be the “spearhead” for paramilitaries in the country. It speaks of a Black Eagles leader who goes by the nom de guerre “Salomón,” and who has inherited what remains of the feared warlord Jorge 40’s organization. Jorge 40, commander of the AUC’s Northern Bloc, was responsible for countless murders and massacres of campesinos, indigenous people and others along Colombia’s Atlantic coast ...
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/node/2045Venezuelan, Dominican agents seize 585 kilos of cocaine
SANTO DOMINGO.- The Venezuelan authorities alerted to a drug shipment which arrived in Punta Caucedo Port, Boca Chica yesterday, aboard a ship "Doris" ... This .. operation was carried out jointly by the Venezuela authorities, the Customs and Drugs Control agencies, and the Dominican Navy. The drugs, which came from Maracaibo, Venezuela, and were headed to Spain, was found in an oil tank in container #CLHU392245-5, in the middle of the cargo hold, which made it difficult to locate ...
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2007/12/5/26293/Venezuelan-Dominican-agents-seize-585-kilos-of-cocaine83 kilograms of cocaine were found during a random search of the vessel
Halifax Daily News, Jul 1, 2004
HALIFAX -- An underwater camera is credited with what's described as the fluke discovery of an attempt to smuggle millions of dollars in cocaine on a cargo ship named after the prime minister's wife and operated by the company he once controlled. Authorities suggest organized crime is behind an attempt to transport cocaine using the Sheila Ann, a ship operated by Canada Steamship Lines, the company Prime Minister Paul Martin transferred control of to his three sons last year. Two duffel bags stuffed with 83 kilograms of cocaine were found early Wednesday during a random search of the vessel, which was carrying coal from Venezuela to Sydney for Nova Scotia Power. The camera discovered the drugs in a grate attached to the bottom of the ship ... Martine Malka, a spokeswoman for Canada Steamship Lines, said the packages must have been smuggled in from Maracaibo, Venezuela, the vessel's last stop before Sydney. She said four bolts holding the underwater grate to the bottom of the ship were removed sometime before the vessel docked, then replaced after the packages were hidden inside ... ``The only way this could have been done is by divers underwater'' ...
http://www.orwelltoday.com/cocainecanadapm.shtmlFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2000
"OPERATION JOURNEY" DISMANTLES COLOMBIAN ORGANIZATION THAT SHIPPED COCAINE TO 12 NATIONS
NEARLY 25 TONS OF COCAINE SEIZED
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- ... A Colombian citizen, De La Vega was arrested in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on Aug. 16, and turned over to U.S. custody ...
http://www.customs.gov/hot-new/pressrel/2000/0826-00.htm