A secret memo obtained by The Associated Press details a covert operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and build drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leader.
It was a plan the United States knew from the start would arguably violate international law.
The Associated Press obtained a secret 2018 memo detailing a covert operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and build drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leadership.
The sting was part of a yearslong investigation that targeted dozens of people, including Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“We don’t like to say it publicly but we are, in fact, the police of the world,” said Wes Tabor, a former DEA official who served as the agency’s country attaché in Venezuela well before the investigation described in the memo was launched.
Here are some of the takeaways from the AP’s exclusive report on the secret memo:
The 15-page memo spells out a secret DEA plan directing confidential informants to record Venezuelan officials suspected of converting the South American country into a narco state. The targets included the country’s electricity minister as well as Jose Vielma, an early acolyte of the late Hugo Chávez who held several top jobs, including trade minister and head of Venezuela’s IRS.
The DEA memo authorized three informants to secretly record undercover meetings with the targets, who ultimately were indicted on money laundering charges but remain in Venezuela today. Among those wearing a wire was a DEA informant accused of fleecing $800 million from Venezuela’s foreign currency system through a fraudulent import scheme.
