Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodríguez addressing international media, showing a slideshow about global illicit funds distribution. Caracas, September 8, 2025. Photo: Fausto Torrealba/AVN.
This Monday, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez denounced an attempt to launch an armed attack against Venezuela using the alleged presence of drug trafficking in the country as an excuse. This occurs within the context of the United States military deployment in the Caribbean.
She also mentioned that 85% of the profits from this illicit business remain in the United States, citing a United Nations report, specifically in its financial system. Rodríguez added that during the financial crisis in 2009, “the bailout was possible thanks to drug trafficking funds in US banks.”
During a press conference with national and international media, Rodríguez emphasized the importance of revealing the truth about Venezuela, “that what is being said today about the country is to try to justify armed aggression, intervention, and seizure of Venezuela’s vast natural resources wealth, such as oil, gas, gold, bauxite, and water resources,” among others.
“One of the worst lies, the hoaxes, that has been spread about Venezuela is to pretend that Venezuela is a country of narcoterrorists and that the Venezuelan government is narcoterrorists,” she said from the headquarters of the Oil Ministry in Caracas.
She emphasized that Venezuelans know what is being attempted against the nation today, with the deployment of US warships north of the country, “seeking to violate the sovereignty of our country, seeking to facilitate an armed aggression against the Venezuelan people. In the face of which, Venezuela’s truth must prevail.”
Venezuela is not relevant in terms of drug trafficking
Rodríguez noted that in the reports of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) from 1999 to 2025, “Venezuela does not appear as a relevant country in terms of illicit drugs or narcotics. Venezuela is not a relevant country in terms of drug trafficking or related crimes. It is listed in all these reports,” she said.
Rodríguez explained that drug trafficking constitutes, within global illicit funds, the second most profitable activity, after organized crime, fraud, and corruption. “It is a major international narcotics conflagration, of which Venezuela, fortunately, is not a part. We say this with pride,” she added.
The Venezuelan vice president emphasized the efforts of Venezuelan law enforcement agencies to fight drugs and added that, according to official maps of cocaine routes, “only 5% attempt to pass through Venezuelan territory. Of that 5%, we have a 70% seizure and destruction capacity for this drug attempting to cross Venezuelan territory, which is under tremendous pressure due to its extensive border with the world’s largest cocaine producer.”
Rodríguez noted that Colombia is the world’s leading cocaine producer, accounting for 61% of the total, followed by Peru and Bolivia. This, she mentioned, means that Venezuela is not a cocaine-producing country and is not a major export route for this drug or any other drug.
“The cocaine route: 87% leaves Colombia and Ecuador to go to the United States; 8% leaves Colombia’s La Guajira region; and 5% attempts to pass through Venezuelan territory,” she explained, citing UN figures. She reiterated that the main route for the export of this drug is the Pacific, which is not naturally connected to the Caribbean.
Given this reality, the vice president questioned whether the ships should be deployed in the Pacific, “if they truly do not want that drug to reach the United States, if their true intention is to stop the entry of cocaine” into their country, which “unfortunately suffers from a terrible public health problem due to its high number of overdose deaths,” you need to work on the Pacific Ocean front.
Venezuela maintains the fight against drugs
Rodríguez reiterated that Venezuela is neither responsible nor the route for these drugs to reach the US, and that the country is carrying out an extraordinary anti-drug fight. “Venezuela has provided extraordinary management, an extraordinary performance, to curb the pressure from producing countries to prevent this territory from becoming a drug transit, cultivation, or storage site,” she said.
She noted that 56 tons of drugs have been seized and destroyed so far this year in Venezuela. Comparing Venezuela’s current performance with what happened when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was in the country, “we know we are doing better than when this US agency was in Venezuela.”
Drug production in the US
On the other hand, she explained that drugs such as cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine are exported to the US, but marijuana is currently produced in that nation. “The United States today supplies itself with cannabis, and from 1975 to the present, its addictive potential measurement index has increased from one to 15 points. Today, marijuana, cannabis, produced in the United States is much more addictive, more potent,” she warned, noting that she was citing Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports despite not finding the agency reliable.
In addition to the financial system, the vice president noted that this US-based business also involves intermediaries who handle distribution throughout that country through drug warehouses and transportation companies, drug gangs in charge of microtrafficking, drug truck drivers who control all drug transportation on various routes, and the so-called narco-Saxons—wealthy white people who traffic drugs to politicians, parties, and other activities “who also bring Jeffrey Epstein’s name to her mind.”
The Venezuelan vice president asserted that these are networks embedded in US territory to ensure compliance with the cycle from the moment the drugs enter the country, and the money laundering machine allows most of the profit of this illicit business to settle quietly in that country. She also emphasized that the fentanyl that enters the country from Mexico does so through legal ports, clarifying that this drug does not have any relation to Venezuela.
(Últimas Noticias) by María Eugenia Rodríguez with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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