the commissioner Ivan Simonovis He pointed out that in Venezuela there are five criminal structures that have a very large impact in the region.
Organized crime today, and hence the importance of what happens in Venezuela, is linked to international crime, he said.
He indicated that the ultimate goal is to undermine the power of the United States and the countries of the region. Transnational crime is nothing more than the oxygen that allows them to fulfill their objectives, he explained.
The curator participated in the Quo Vadis Latin America forum, organized by the Interamerican Institute for Democracy at the Coral Gables Museum.
He pointed out that the megabandas, the first of the criminal structures in Venezuela, are organizations that have between 600 and 700 individuals, who are dedicated to theft, kidnapping, micro-trafficking and, obviously, are also part of the social control of the Nicolás Maduro regime. In Venezuela.
He indicated, secondly, the collectives, “a kind of Hitlerian brown shirts that are used to intimidate, and are part of the social control that is used in Venezuela.”
He explained that these groups can transmute peaceful demonstrations into violent ones to justify the use of public force and neutralize the protests.
“Of these groups there are 14 identified and at least 5,000 individuals,” he said.
The third of the criminal structures in Venezuela
Simonovis pointed out that the third of the criminal structures in Venezuela is drug trafficking. “The United States announced at the beginning of the year that it had identified at least seven air, sea and land routes from Venezuela to Central America to move drugs and mining,” he said.
He indicated that the reality of Venezuela is that it is experiencing a military dictatorship, “and these soldiers have alliances with the guerrillas and drug traffickers, and they are the ones who can facilitate it because they have control of the police, of the ports and airports, of the identification, radars, everything necessary to market this type of material”.
The guerrilla
The guerrilla is the fourth criminal structure, said Simonovis.
“The Colombian guerrilla got a territory in Venezuela to mobilize with impunity. They are operating in the 944 square kilometers that Venezuela has and there is no one to stop them because it has a strategic alliance with the regime, which has also turned the guerrillas into a logistics operator that not only allows them to attack in Colombia but in other parts of the country. the region,” he said.
Simonovis specified that until 2021 between 800 and 1,000 individuals from the FARC and at least twice as many from the ELN were counted in Venezuela.
The terrorism
Terrorism is the fifth of the criminal structures in Venezuela. Simonovis clarified that, according to the Israel International Institute Against Terrorism, jihadist terrorism does not operate in Venezuela, however there is a presence of Hezbollah and Iranian terrorism.
“In recent years there have been numerous arrests of members of Hezbollah and international terrorism in various parts of the world with Venezuelan identifications. That has happened from Panama to Argentina, even in the United States and Europe”, he pointed out.
“It is super proven that there are Iranian armed organizations that provide security to critical assets in Venezuela,” he added.
