A former Venezuelan spy chief has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking just days before the scheduled start of his New York trial — which would have highlighted explosive claims about a cocaine cartel allegedly run by Venezuela’s top military and political leaders.

Hugo Carvajal Barrios — who is also known as “El Pollo,” or “The Chicken” — served as director of military intelligence under Venezuela’s leftist leader Hugo Chávez, as well as his successor and current president, Nicolas Maduro.

Carvajal, 65, is accused of helping lead a trafficking group known as the Cartel de los Soles, or “Cartel of the Suns.” The name comes from insignias on the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials. Prosecutors alleged that both Chávez and Maduro were part of the cartel.

Carvajal was due to begin his trial on June 30, but instead submitted a guilty plea on June 25. Given Carvajal’s inside knowledge of the Venezuelan government, his testimony could have made public key information about the roles leading politicians and military figures allegedly played in the cartel.

Carvajal has avoided going to trial by pleading guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S., among other charges. He also admitted to engaging in narco-terrorism for the benefit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a statement.

Carvajal faces possible life in prison for just one of the four counts against him, and potentially 60 years more on the other charges, but the sentence will be decided by a judge, the Attorney’s Office said.

Carvajal’s sentencing is not expected until October, so there’s still time for him to make a deal with U.S. authorities to provide information in return for a reduced prison term, said Bonnie Klapper, a former prosecutor in California and New York.

“It is highly unlikely, but not impossible,” she told OCCRP. “Because he pleaded instead of making the government go to trial, it may still be possible”.

Court filings show that evidence approved for trial included testimonies from witnesses describing meetings attended by Chávez in 2005, 2008, and 2009. The former president allegedly advocated for the removal of certain judges to “protect drug routes” used by Colombian FARC guerrillas within Venezuela.

Prosecutors allege that Chávez said he wanted to “flood” the U.S. with drugs. They also accuse Venezuela’s current interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, of outlining plans to collaborate with the FARC in exporting narcotics to the U.S. and Europe.

Prosecutors allege that Chávez led the Cartel de los Soles until his death in 2013, after which Maduro assumed control. Maduro rejected the accusation after being indicted in 2020, posting on X that the U.S. was attempting to “fill Venezuela with violence.”

Carvajal turned against Maduro in 2019, throwing his support instead behind the U.S.-backed political opposition figure Juan Guaido. He was charged with treason in Venezuela and fled to Spain, entering under a fake identity.

Spanish authorities arrested Carvajal on an Interpol warrant in April 2019, a month after he arrived in the country. He escaped house arrest and went missing for more than a year before being found in September 2021, hiding out in Madrid.

In 2023, Spain extradited Carvajal to the U.S. to face trial.

Carvajal’s lawyer planned to argue the extradition was illegal, OCCRP reported in March. The lawyer said he intended to argue that Carvajal could not be prosecuted, because he had “sovereign immunity” as a representative of a foreign government.

But plans to keep Carvajal out of prison have now failed.

“After years of trying to evade law enforcement, Carvajal Barrios will now likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison,” Robert Murphy, the acting administrator for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, said in a statement.

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

3 hours 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 epaulettes 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.

Two jailed over £400,000 cannabis factory

Police raided the cannabis factory in New Cleveland Street, Hull, in April

Two men have been jailed after admitting growing cannabis plants worth more than £400,000.

Ernest Gioka, 24, and Gjergj Biba, 32, were arrested after Humberside Police raided a building in New Cleveland Street, Hull, in April.

Gioka, of New Cleveland Street, was sentenced to 32 months in jail at Hull Crown Court after pleading guilty to the production of a Class B drug and abstracting electricity without authority.

Biba, of Coundon Road, Coventry, was sentenced to 36 months after pleading guilty to drugs production. He was acquitted by the court of stealing electricity.

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.