Venezuela arrest three from military for involvement in massive French dope deal

Reuters/NY Times:

Venezuela has arrested three National Guard officials for alleged involvement in smuggling 1.3 tonnes of cocaine on an Air France flight from Caracas to Paris, the South American nation's public prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

The seizure of the cocaine haul valued at as much as 200 million euros ($270.19 million) comes as Washington is again accusing Venezuela of failing to adequately fight trafficking of cocaine from neighboring Colombia.

Public prosecutors will charge a first sergeant, a second sergeant and a first lieutenant for "allegedly committing crimes established by Venezuelan law," the prosecutor's office said, without offering details of what charges it would file.

It added that authorities in Paris had detained six people, three of whom are Italian and three British.

The drugs were stashed in suitcases that were registered under false names that did not correspond to passengers on the flight to Charles de Gaulle airport, French police sources told Reuters.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls estimated the cocaine shipment had a value of 50 million euros, while police and legal sources said the street value of the drug could be as much as 200 million euros.

"This marks the biggest seizure of cocaine ever made in mainland France as part of a judicial investigation," Valls told reporters on Saturday.
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Drug enforcement experts say Venezuela's location on South America's Caribbean and Atlantic seaboards makes it a preferred route for planes and ships carrying Colombian cocaine to the United States and Europe via Central America and Africa.

The United States has for over a decade accused Venezuela of turning a blind eye to drug smuggling, and has described several high-ranking military officials and ruling party allies as drug "kingpins."
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Those arrested are too low ranking to have pulled an operation this big off without direction from much higher up.  They are probably just the fall guys from a deal gone bad.  There have been allegations that the corruption goes all the way to the top of the Venezuelan military.

What is somewhat different about this deal from other Venezuelan connections is that they appear to be trying to bypass their African al Qaeda connections which usually required landing in West Africa and then transport through Mali and North Africa to Europe.  The French action against the Mali forces may have disrupted that route so more direct approach was used.