Secret spying programme targeted top Venezuelan officials
A SECRET memo obtained by The Associated Press (AP) details a yearslong covert operation by the US Drug Enforcement Administration that sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and build drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leadership – a plan the US acknowledged from the start was arguably a violation of international law.
“It is necessary to conduct this operation unilaterally and without notifying Venezuelan officials,” reads the 15-page 2018 memo expanding ‘Operation Money Badger’, an investigation that authorities say targeted dozens of people, including Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
While there’s no clear mechanism to hold the United States accountable legally, the revelation threatens to roil already fraught relations with Maduro’s socialist government and could deepen resentment of the US across Latin America over perceived meddling. It also offers a rare window into the lengths the DEA was willing to go to fight the drug war in a country that banned US drug agents nearly two decades ago.
Some of Maduro’s closest allies were ensnared in the investigation, including Alex Saab, the businessman recently freed in a prisoner swap for 10 Americans and a fugitive defence contractor. But until now, it was not clear that US probes targeting Venezuela involved legally questionable tactics.
“We don’t like to say it publicly but we are, in fact, the police of the world,” said Wes Tabor, a former DEA official who served as the agency’s country attaché in Venezuela well before the investigation described in the memo was launched.
Tabor, who would not confirm the existence of any such operations, said unilateral, covert actions can be an effective tool when conducted with proper limits and accountability, particularly in a country like Venezuela, where the blurred lines between the state and criminal underworld have made it an ideal transit point for up to 15 per cent of the world’s cocaine.
“We’re not in the business of abiding by other countries’ laws when these countries are rogue regimes and the lives of American children are at stake,” he said. “And in the case of Venezuela, where they’re flooding us with dope, it’s worth the risk.