Report: U.S. Authorities Probing Venezuela Drug Claims
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U.S. prosecutors are investigating several senior Venezuelan officials over alleged involvement in large-scale cocaine trafficking, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing more than a dozen people with knowledge of the case.
The Journal report said Drug Enforcement Administration investigators and federal prosecutors in New York and Miami were building cases based on evidence supplied by former cocaine traffickers, informants with close ties to Venezuelan officials and defectors from the Venezuelan military.
The newspaper reported that those under investigation included the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, regarded as the South American country's second most powerful man.
"There is extensive evidence to justify that he is one of the heads, if not the head, of the cartel," an unidentified Justice Department official was quoted as saying. "He certainly is a main target."
Venezuelan authorities have previously dismissed allegations of involvement in the drug trade as smears designed to undermine the leftist government in Caracas.
Cabello last week launched a lawsuit against staff and journalists from three different Venezuelan media outlets which have aired the drug allegations.
"They accuse me of being a drug trafficker without a single piece of evidence and now I'm the bad guy," Cabello was quoted as telling Venezuelan state media.
"I feel offended, and none of them even said they're sorry."
The report said Venezuela had witnessed an "explosion" in drug trafficking in recent years, with Colombian cartels transferring operations to their oil-rich neighbor following a U.S.-funded crackdown in their homeland.
The United States estimates that nearly a third of the cocaine produced in other Andean countries moves through Venezuela each year.
The report said U.S. prosecutors are not targeting President Nicolas Maduro in their investigation but rather other officials and military leaders viewed as the de facto leaders of trafficking gangs.
