Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused the Colombian government of financing organized crime in Venezuela.
On Thursday, February 10, Maduro decried that his Colombian counterpart, Iván Duque, had been financing and training Carlos Luis Revette, a.k.a El Koki, leader of Caracas’ La Cota 905 criminal gang. Revette was killed last week in a Venezuelan police operation in Aragua state.
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During a state television (VTV) broadcast, President Maduro stated, “El Koki and all these criminals who did so much damage to the people of Caracas were trained, financed and directed by the paramilitary government of Iván Duque, as simple as that.”
He added that those who were detained in the police operation have also declared how they were constructing a paramilitary base with the intention of attacking the city of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, “under an order from the paramilitary narco Iván Duque.”
On Tuesday, February 8, the Venezuelan Minister for the Interior, Justice and Peace, Remigio Ceballos, confirmed the death of Revette in the Guaicaipuro 2 security operation, in Las Tejerías, in Aragua state.
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Revette was responsible for the shootings in western Caracas in July last year that left at least 26 dead, including four police officers, and 38 were wounded.
At the time, residents of the Caracas neighborhood of El Cementerio, where Revette had been operating for years, spent hours inside their homes due to clashes between the police and the gangs. After the shootings, the authorities launched an operation to arrest Revette, in addition to offering a reward of up to $500,000 for his capture.
Featured image: President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro at a public event. Photo: Twitter/@NicolasMaduro
(HispanTV)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/GMS/SC
