Venezuela first lady’s kin admitted drug smuggling: US

WASHINGTON: Two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady admitted being part of a cocaine smuggling scheme in a US sting operation before their arrest last year, according to recently filed court documents.

Details of the alleged confessions by Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freita were recounted in documents US prosecutors filed on Friday in the US federal court in Manhattan.

The two — sons of brothers of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores — were arrested in Haiti in November 2015 and flown to New York by US Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

The pair are accused of plotting to smuggle at least five kilos of cocaine into the United States. They were also accused of taking part in meetings to plan a shipment of cocaine to the United States via Honduras.

The newly released court documents show how Campo and Flores and others worked together to try to send hundreds of kilogrammes of cocaine from Venezuela to Honduras so that the drugs could be imported into the United States. The drugs were purportedly to be bought by Mexican drug traffickers.

During recorded meetings in Venezuela, Honduras, and Haiti, the defendants discussed transporting multiple loads of cocaine via private aircraft, the papers said.

US officials believe much of the cocaine produced in Colombia passes through Venezuela before being transported to the United States and Europe. — AFP