The Cocaine Case Against Maduro
Who will testify to convict the Venezuelan president?
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Reporting from Cúcuta, Colombia
The Colombian Andes remain the biggest cocaine farm in the world, growing 67 percent of the green coca leaves used to make the white disco powder, compared to 25 percent in Peru and 8 percent in Bolivia, according to U.N. estimates. Farmers raise coca in many parts of Colombia, but the biggest areas for crops are Cauca, Nariño, and Putumayo, close to Ecuador, and Catatumbo on the Venezuela border. This last one, which is north of where I am now in Cúcuta and is in the midst of a war between guerillas, is central to the case against Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
For quarter of a century, traffickers have been shifting tons of cocaine from Catatumbo to Venezuela, from where it is smuggled to the United States, Europe, Brazil and elsewhere. The Venezuelan army is alleged to be deeply involved in the trade and planes packed with bricks of cocaine have left the main airport of Caracas.
Whatever the core motive for Donald J. Trump to seize Maduro, which may well be Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, and whatever the legality or ethics of using special forces to storm in and get him, Maduro faces charges in a New York court of cocaine trafficking and narco terrorism conspiracy. Some of the mainstream reporting on this has been misleading so it’s worth going deeper into. Being honest, there is a strong case that Maduro took bribes to help cocaine trafficking, and that squares with interviews I have done with narcos. However, that could be tough to be prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt.
To make the case, prosecutors are considering which narco witnesses to use, including Mexican and Colombian traffickers, and looking at former Venezuelan government officials. Prosecutors have a…
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