Venezuelan soldiers destroy an improvised facility used by criminal gangs in the countryside. Photo: Últimas Noticias.
By Misión Verdad – Nov 22, 2024
Venezuelan Journalist Eligio Rojas released information regarding the movement of weapons and ammunition in Venezuela by organized crime groups aiming to instigate acts of violence prior to January 10. The inauguration of re-elected President Nicolás Maduro is scheduled for that date. From the opposition’s perspective, it would be a moment of supposed political rupture due to their plan of not recognizing the July 28 election results.
Through the digital media channel La Iguana on YouTube, Rojas named the groups involved in plans of violence for political purposes:
• Tren del Llano in the Apure and Guárico states.
• Los Chevrolets in Aragua state.
• Yeico Masacre in Zulia state.
• Sabanas Altas in Falcón state.
Rojas explained that in Falcón state, security forces are carrying out operations in the municipalities of Tocópero and Píritu following the trail of activities linked to the shipment of drugs from Colombia.
Seizures and arrests in progress
The movements of criminal organizations have been detected in key places in Venezuela. The flow of operators and weapons linked to criminal activity has been detected in states in the northern coastal axis and plains region. According to Rojas, this points towards the construction of new momentum for political destabilization.
The permeability of the border with Colombia and the Caribbean islands constitutes an opportunity for operations with an agenda of violence drafted by a sector of the far-right opposition, given the decline of the coup plan hatched before the recent elections.
• In Falcón, 15 military uniforms were seized from Ramón Edgardo Infante, 51 years old, a member of the Sabanas Altas gang.
• On October 28, Colombian national Eduardo Parra González and Venezuelan Máyira Luque were arrested in the Rómulo Gallegos municipality of Apure state. Both were transporting 2,600 cartridges of ammunition of various calibers in a vehicle.
• The following week, at the same location, Jorge Alberto Requena Rojo, Nixon Orlando Ramírez Ramírez, and Stephanie Angeline Alvarado Lara were arrested. They were all linked to far-right terrorist organizations, according to a report by the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) cited by Eligio Rojas. They were carrying a P226 pistol with a magazine containing 13 rounds.
• In the Los Olivos sector of Maracaibo, Zulia state, the military seized 20 firearms carried by three arrested individuals. These were 20 9mm pistols that, according to the report of the 211th detachment of the GNB, were intended for use by criminal gangs.
Criminal cells, protagonists of swarming
As Misión Verdad has reported, the organization of mercenaries, criminal groups, arms trafficking, and factors of cyberwarfare is related to the swarming tactic promoted by María Corina Machado as part of the US regime change agenda.
The journalistic work by Rojas refers to the link between far-right groups and violence for political purposes. Far-right groups have recruited the aforementioned criminal gangs whose role in the plan is to organize hotbeds of violence in parallel with their criminal activities, taking advantage of the logistics that these groups possess and their knowledge of the territory.
This practice has been common on previous occasions. It is worth remembering the participation of criminal gangs in the Sucre municipality of Miranda state during Operation Gideon in May 2020. This was explained by criminal José Alberto Socorro Hernández, alias “Pepero,” who claimed that the shootings in the area were a “smoke screen” by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to distract security forces from the paramilitary incursion.
Eligio Rojas linked elements of the aforementioned plan with the recent cleanup operation of the Eastern Central Region Penitentiary Center, better known as the El Dorado prison in Bolívar state. At the beginning of November, over 3,000 officers, including police officers and members of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), took control of the prison and 17 ringleaders.
In addition, authorities arrested three guards from the Ministry of Penitentiary Services who were acting in complicity and seized two rifles, two shotguns, automatic weapons, over 400 cell phones, satellite internet antennas, routers, alcoholic beverages, and a “significant” stash of drugs, according to Minister for Penitentiary Services Julio García Zerpa.
In this regard, Rojas’ work explains the evidence found suggests the use of the prison population to instigate acts of violence for political purposes. It also states that these plans were thwarted at the end of 2023 by Operation Gran Cacique Guaicaipuro, in which seven prisons were raided in a 50-day period, and a large quantity of weapons and ammunition was seized.
Chaos as a programmatic basis
The decline of María Corina Machado’s leadership and her eventual flee from Venezuela have affected the swarming. However, the evidence points to the fact that the organization of criminal gangs and extremist leaders would be part of this tactic of chaos and confrontation designed to create conditions for a coup d’état, supported by the configuration of shock groups and the activation of armed groups.
Venezuelan Security Agencies Dismantle ‘No to Christmas’ Coup Plot
Other reports by Rojas have revealed the involvement of the DEA and Colombian drug trafficking groups in plans to control territories in the country. The actions of the Tren de Aragua—reconverted into Los Chevrolet— and the Tren del Llano in confrontations after July 28 resulted in multiple murders of the civilian population and material damage to important public infrastructure.
Various spokesmen of the antipolitical opposition, such as Iván Simonovis, have escalated the level of threat in their messages. The recent arrests and seizures have confirmed the development of an armed plan that seeks to accelerate scenarios of instability before January 10.
The shock and the coup d’état are the programmatic basis of an opposition that, in addition to orchestrating violence, has once again called for sanctions against Venezuela, hence the importance of comprehensive preventive action by the Venezuelan government.
Due to the lack of organizational power in the “citizen” front that triggers the swarming tactic, attempts are being made to take advantage of Donald Trump’s recent victory in the US presidential elections. This would consist of creating conditions for his government to support violent hotbeds and a new push for destabilization, either directly through covert operations or by appealing to intervention due to the alleged human rights violations.
It is highly likely that these new dismantled plans are a sign that operators in the field of unconventional warfare have decided to step on the accelerator to advance the times and condition the behavior of the Trump administration towards Venezuela. The opposition’s most extremist and pro-intervention sector places its hopes for the regime change agenda to return to the scene and dominate the political landscape from the beginning of 2025.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SF
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
