Venezuela’s ex-spy chief pleads guilty to narco-terrorism charges

36 minutes ago Share Save Vanessa Buschschlüter Latin America editor, BBC News Online Share Save

Reuters Hugo Carvajal was once one of the most powerful and feared officials in Venezuela

Venezuela’s former head of military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal – also known as “El Pollo”, or The Chicken – has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the US. US officials accused the 65-year-old of forming part of a drug-smuggling organisation made up of high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military. The guilty plea is the latest twist in Carvajal’s demise from feared spymaster to convict via his ignominious arrest in a hideout in Madrid, where he had been spotted despite donning a fake moustache and a wig. Carvajal, who was a close ally of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is thought to hold key information about Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.

Carvajal was part of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) – named after the suns which feature on the lapels of high-ranking officers in the Venezuelan military – according to a statement released by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where Carvajal was due to go on trial in the coming days. “For years, he and other officials in the Cartel de Los Soles used cocaine as a weapon – flooding New York and other American cities with poison,” the statement read. It added that he partnered with left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in neighbouring Colombia, whom he supplied with weapons and whose cocaine shipments to the US via Venezuela he protected. Carvajal received millions of dollars in payment in exchange, according to US Attorney Jay Clayton.

Hugo Carvajal was extradited to the US from Spain in 2023. The former spy chief pleaded guilty to narcoterrorism, weapons, and drug trafficking charges.

A former head of Venezuela’s military intelligence pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narcoterrorism charges a week before his trial was set to begin in a United States federal court.

Hugo Carvajal — a close aide of the country’s late President Hugo Chavez — on Wednesday pleaded guilty to four criminal counts, including narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons charges.

The indictment accused the retired major general of leading a cartel composed of senior Venezuelan military officers that attempted to “flood” the US with cocaine in collusion with leftist guerrillas from neighboring Colombia.

The 65-year-old faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Carvajal’s sentencing is slated for October.

Extradited from Spain after 10 years on the run

Nicknamed “El Pollo,” Spanish for “the chicken,” Carvajal advised Chavez for over a decade and was considered one of the most powerful figures of the socialist leader’s rule.

The spymaster later broke with current President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor, to support the US-backed political opposition.

In 2023, Carvajal was extradited from Spain after being on the run from US law enforcement for more than 10 years.

“The deeply troubling reality is that there are powerful foreign government officials who conspire to flood the United States with drugs that kill and debilitate,” Jay Clayton, the interim US attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Edited by: Sean Sinico

NEW YORK, June 26, 2025 (BSS/AFP) – Venezuela’s former intelligence chief Hugo Armando Carvajal pleaded guilty Wednesday to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in a US federal court, the Justice Department said.

The 65-year-old, known by the nickname “El Pollo” (The Chicken), was once one of the most powerful men in Venezuela, having served under the former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Carvajal pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, participation in narco-terrorism for the benefit of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, and weapons-related offenses, according to a Justice Department statement.

“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates our commitment to holding accountable foreign officials who abuse their power to poison our citizens,” US Attorney Jay Clayton was quoted as saying in the statement.

Carvajal, who served as head of military intelligence from 2004 to 2011, “will likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison,” according to Acting Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Robert Murphy.

The statement added that Carvajal had participated in violence, including kidnappings and murder, to facilitate cocaine trafficking.

The Miami Herald reported that the former official pleaded guilty “in a deal that leaves open the possibility of his cooperation with law enforcement in exchange for a reduced sentence”.

Citing sources familiar with the case, the newspaper said that Carvajal offered to provide US authorities with documents and testimony implicating current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials “in a range of illegal activities, from drug trafficking and election rigging to espionage operations and arming gangs”.

Caracas and Washington have had strained relations for years.

The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since 2019. The United States has also imposed economic sanctions and an oil embargo on the South American country.

Miami — A former Venezuelan spymaster who was close to the country’s late President Hugo Chávez pleaded guilty Wednesday to drug trafficking charges a week before his trial was set to begin in a Manhattan federal court.

Retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal was extradited from Spain in 2023 after more than a decade on the run from U.S. law enforcement, including a botched arrest in Aruba while he was serving as a diplomat representing current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government.

Carvajal pleaded guilty in court to all four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism, in an indictment accusing him of leading a cartel made up of senior Venezuelan military officers that attempted to “flood” the U.S. with cocaine in cahoots with leftist guerrillas from neighboring Colombia.

Former Venezuelan military spy chief, retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, walks out of prison in Estremera on the outskirts of Madrid on Sept. 15, 2019. Manu Fernandez / AP

In a letter this week to defense counsel, prosecutors said they believe federal sentencing guidelines call for the 65-year-old Carvajal to serve a mandatory minimum of 50 years in prison.

Nicknamed “El Pollo,” Spanish for “the chicken,” Carvajal advised Chávez for more than a decade. He later broke with Maduro, Chávez’s handpicked successor, and threw his support behind the U.S.-backed political opposition – in dramatic fashion.

In a recording made from an undisclosed location, Carvajal called on his former military cohorts to rebel a month into mass protests seeking to replace Maduro with lawmaker Juan Guaidó, whom the first Trump administration recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader as head of the democratically elected National Assembly.

The hoped-for barracks revolt never materialized, and Carvajal fled to Spain. In 2021, he was captured hiding out in a Madrid apartment after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared.

Carvajal’s straight-up guilty plea, without any promise of leniency, could be part of a gamble to win credit down the line for cooperating with U.S. efforts against a top foreign adversary that sits atop the world’s largest petroleum reserves.

Although Carvajal has been out of power for years, his backers say he can provide potentially valuable insights on the inner workings of the spread of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua into the U.S. and spying activities of the Maduro-allied governments of Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.

He may also be angling for President Trump’s attention with information about voting technology company Smartmatic. One of Carvajal’s deputies was a major player in Venezuela’s electoral authority when the company was getting off the ground.

Florida-based Smartmatic says its global business was decimated when Fox News aired false claims by Trump allies that it helped rig the 2020 U.S. election. One of the company’s Venezuelan founders was later charged in the U.S. in a bribery case involving its work in the Philippines.

Gary Berntsen, a former CIA officer in Latin America who oversaw commandos that hunted al-Qaeda, sent a public letter this week to Mr. Trump urging the Justice Department to delay the start of Carvajal’s trial so officials could debrief the former spymaster.

“He’s no angel, he’s a very bad man,” Berntsen said in an interview. “But we need to defend democracy.”

Carvajal’s attorney, Robert Feitel, said prosecutors announced in court this month that they never extended a plea offer to his client or sought to meet with him.

“I think that was an enormous mistake,” Feitel told The Associated Press while declining further comment. “He has information that is extraordinarily important to our national security and law enforcement.”

In 2011, prosecutors alleged that Carvajal used his office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600 kilograms (12,300 pounds) of cocaine aboard a jet from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006. In exchange, he accepted millions of dollars from drug traffickers, prosecutors said.

He allegedly arranged the shipment as one of the leaders of the so-called Cartel of the Suns – a nod to the sun insignias affixed to the uniforms of senior Venezuelan military officers. The cocaine was sourced by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization and which for years took refuge in Venezuela as it sought to overthrow Colombia’s government.

Carvajal “exploited his position as the director of Venezuela’s military intelligence and abandoned his responsibility to the people of Venezuela in order to intentionally cause harm to the United States,” DEA Acting Administrator Robert Murphy said. “After years of trying to evade law enforcement, (he) will now likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison.”

Carjaval’s “guilty plea demonstrates our commitment to holding accountable foreign officials who abuse their power to poison our citizens,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton was quoted as saying in a Justice Department statement.

Plea comes after Hugo Carvajal was extradited from Spain to US to face charges he coordinated drug trafficking.

Venezuela’s former spy chief has pleaded not guilty in a United States court to charges he coordinated international drug trafficking while in office.

The 63-year-old Hugo Carvajal had served as former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s eyes and ears in the country’s military from 2004 to 2011.

US federal prosecutors said, during that time, he facilitated the shipment of thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico, where it was ultimately sent to the US.

“Carvajal abandoned his responsibility to the people of Venezuela and exploited his position for personal gain,” US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief Anne Milgram said in a statement upon his extradition. “DEA and our partners stand united to bring to justice anyone, in any position, who endangers the safety and health of the American people.”

Carvajal’s appearance in New York federal court on Thursday marked the culmination of more than 10 years of effort by the Department of Justice to bring him to US soil.

The charges against him include participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiring to import cocaine to the US and conspiring to use, carry or possess “machine guns and destructive devices” in connection with the cocaine trafficking.

Carvajal was first arrested in 2014 in Aruba, a semi-autonomous Dutch Caribbean island. He was later released and returned to Venezuela after the Netherlands ruled he had diplomatic immunity. At the time, the US Department of State decried the decision, calling it disappointing and disturbing.

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In 2019, he was again arrested, this time in Spain, on US drug charges, but he went into hiding after a court initially approved his extradition. He was re-arrested in 2021.

Following his extradition on Wednesday, US prosecutors released a statement explaining that Carvajal — as far back as 1999 — served as one of the “leaders and managers” of the so-called Cartel of the Suns, a group of officials that oversaw drug trafficking.

The cartel’s name is a reference to the sun insignia affixed to the uniforms of Venezuelan military officers.

Prosecutors said Carvajal partnered with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group to set up the cocaine trafficking network. At the time, the prosecutors explained, FARC was responsible for cocaine production across swathes of Colombia and Venezuela.

One shipment alone contained 5.6 tonnes of cocaine, flown on board a private jet from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006, according to prosecutors. Mexican authorities intercepted the cocaine upon arrival.

Nicknamed “El Pollo” — “The Chicken” — Carvajal had also taken part in the failed 1992 coup that facilitated Chavez’s rise to political prominence. He was widely considered to be one of the most powerful figures to serve under the socialist leader.

Carvajal later broke with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s handpicked successor.

He threw his support instead behind US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido and released a video from an undisclosed location in 2019 calling on the military to rise up against Maduro. His appeal went unanswered.