Venezuela Links Criminal Groups With Colombian Authorities

The president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, denounced on Thursday the links between criminal groups that operated in Venezuela already neutralized, Colombian authorities and the former opposition deputy Juan Guaidó.

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He revealed that these groups received large caliber weapons equipped with telescopic sights, grenade launchers and other features. He confirmed that they all come from Colombia and that if their origin is followed, it will be noticed that they originally come from the United States.

He said that Venezuelan authorities have reliable evidence that leaders of these criminal groups linked to Colombian drug trafficking and paramilitarism traveled systematically to that country, trained there and re-entered Venezuela.

He said that the plan of these groups included murdering civilians, smuggling drugs, kidnapping people and extorting, and with those funds buying more weapons in Colombia.

He stated that all these groups would be neutralized and that gangs have already been dismantled in Guárico, Petare, Sucre, Caracas and Aragua.

He revealed that these groups had precise instructions to create a distraction for the development of the invasion to Venezuela called Operation Gideon in May 2020.

He added that there is enough evidence on these facts, confirmed even from the confession of a captured sniper, Stalin José Páez Mujica, who explained that the criminal leaders known by their aliases El Coqui and El Conejo traveled every month to Colombia to receive training.

Rodriguez added that they would then use the trails on the Colombian side of the border, controlled by drug traffickers and paramilitaries known as tancol (Colombian Terrorists, Assassins and Drug Traffickers) to enter Venezuela.

She recalled that the organizers of the drone attack against President Nicolás Maduro, which occurred in August 2018 in Caracas, also systematically traveled to Colombia.

During the appearance, Rodríguez denounced that they used an NGO named Pies Descalzos, registered in Colombia and that supposedly served vulnerable people. Still, in reality, they used its headquarters to stockpile weapons and recruit young people, including children, for dirty war functions against Venezuela.

Rodríguez made it clear that the U.S. and other western countries sabotaged the dialogue between the Bolivarian Revolution and sectors of the right-wing. With absolute hypocrisy and cynicism, they try to present themselves as interested in that dialogue.

He also pointed out that Colombian President Iván Duque no longer has time to invade Venezuela, but he never had the guts to do so.