For those who follow U.S.-Cuba policy and the many unforced errors made by previous administrations, the Biden administration exchanging criminals for U.S. hostages in Venezuela bring back some bad memories. In exchange for the release of American hostages held by the Castro dictatorship, Obama turned over members of the Cuban WASP network of spies imprisoned in the U.S., The Cuban spies had been tried and convicted for espionage along with their role in the murder of four American pilots shot down by the Cuban military over international waters. Now Biden has done the same with Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship. It’s déjà vu all over again.
Via the Center for a FREE Cuba:
Deja vu in Venezuela for Cuba watchers? American hostages swapped for high profile regime figures
In 1999, the year Hugo Chavez took office in Venezuela 3,186 U.S. citizens died of cocaine overdoses. In 2021, after 22 years of the Chavez-Maduro regime in power with the assistance of the Cuban intelligence service 23,513 Americans died in 2021 of cocaine overdoses. The Castro regime turned Venezuela into a mafia state, and it has cost tens of thousands in U.S. lives.
Last week on December 12th, a jury in New York City returned a guilty verdict against a Venezuelan national, Carlos Orense Azocar a.k.a. “El Gordo”, linked to the Soles Cartel, who played an important role in delivering tons of cocaine to the United States. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York issued a statement.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “For more than a decade, Carlos Orense Azocar worked with some of the largest narcotics traffickers in the world to send tons of cocaine to the United States. He partnered with corrupt high-ranking government and military officials in Venezuela and employed an arsenal of high-powered weapons to protect his cocaine distribution organization. For years, Orense Azocar shipped mountains of poison to this country and made millions of dollars in drug money. But no more. A jury in this district has unanimously held Orense Azocar responsible for his crimes, and now he will face a possible life sentence behind bars.”
Alex Saab, a Colombian national, described by The New York Times as a close ally of Nicolas Maduro, and allegedly a major money launderer with working relationships with both state terror sponsors and terrorist groups will not have to answer for his alleged crimes in a court of law, and may now go on to commit new ones. Juan Forero, South America bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, shared a thread Tweeted out by Marshall S. Billingslea now at the Hudson Institute, a former Presidential Envoy and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing gave the following description of who is Alex Saab, a Colombian national freed by President Biden yesterday, and its significance.
Alex Saab was sanctioned, indicted on multiple criminal charges, arrested and extradited following several years of investigation by the Treasury Department, multiple law enforcement agencies and the Justice Department. Multiple nations across Latin America, Europe and Asia worked together to disrupt his sprawling money-laundering network, which included wholesale theft from the food program intended to feed malnourished Venezuelans (CLAP). He was trafficking in gold looted from the regime’s ecocidal strip-mining & mercury contamination of the Orinoco When he was arrested, he was in the midst of brokering deals with Iran, the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism. Alex Saab is easily one of the worst, most corrupt testaferro for the Venezuelan regime. His release deals a heavy blow to US credibility in the fight against corruption, particularly in Latin America. It sends a disastrous signal to partner nations who cooperated with us, believing Saab would face justice — no more so than Cape Verde, who extradited him despite enormous Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan regime pressure. Worse, it is a “gut-punch” to the Venezuelan opposition. We supposedly are their friends, but we just let one of the worst Boligarch thieves walk free. …
President Joe Biden issued a statement on “securing the release of Americans detained in Venezuela.”
Today, ten Americans who have been detained in Venezuela have been released and are coming home, including all six wrongfully detained Americans. These individuals have lost far too much precious time with their loved ones, and their families have suffered every day in their absence. I am grateful that their ordeal is finally over, and that these families are being made whole once more. Additionally, a fugitive named Leonard Francis, who fled the United States before he could be sentenced for his lead role in a brazen bribery and corruption case – was arrested and returned to the United States from Venezuela so that he will face justice for crimes he committed against the U.S. Government and the American people. We are ensuring that the Venezuelan regime meets its commitments. They have announced an electoral roadmap – agreed to by opposition parties – for competitive Presidential elections in 2024. This a positive and important step forward. And today, they are releasing twenty political prisoners, on top of five released previously. We will continue to monitor this closely and take appropriate action if needed. We stand in support of democracy in Venezuela and the aspirations of the Venezuelan people.
In the same statement President Biden reminded Americans not to go to Venezuela.
“As we welcome home our fellow citizens, I must also remind all Americans of the long-standing warning against traveling to Venezuela. Americans should not travel there.”
However, on the same day Juan S. Gonzalez, Special Assistant to President Biden and Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council made a claim that appears to contradict the President’s warning in an interview with NTN24 that he tweeted out.
“…No more Americans will be detained in Venezuela, and if they are detained they will be deported to the United States. The important thing is that now Venezuela is no longer on the same list with countries like Iran, Russia, North Korea that negotiate with Americans as hostages.”
Alex Saab’s money-laundering network facilitated the profits of the Soles Cartel’s cocaine trafficking to the United States. A cartel that came into existence with the know-how of the Cuban intelligence service.
Christopher Dickey World News Editor at The Daily Beast on June 4, 2018 wrote a well researched and documented article “How Cuba Helped Make Venezuela a Mafia State” that outlines the Castro regime’s involvement in linking up Venezuelan officials with drug traffickers and guerrilla groups, but begins with the 1989 Ochoa Trial, an effort by the Cuban autocrats to whitewash their drug trafficking image by executing the high ranking Cuban general Arnaldo Ochoa in a political show trial. This ended one chapter of large-scale drug trafficking for the Castros, but a new chapter would begin with the Chavez regime in Venezuela according to Dickey.
Continue reading HERE.
And the moral is: Don’t look for justice from people whose interests don’t include you or your issues.