Venezuelan Leader Delcy Rodríguez Has Been On DEA’s Radar For Years

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump announced brave capture As Nicolás Maduro faces drug trafficking charges in the United States, he portrayed the dictator’s vice president and longtime aide as America’s preferred partner in stabilizing Venezuela amid drugs, corruption and economic turmoil.

The cloud of suspicion that had surrounded him for so long remained unspoken. Delcy Rodriguez before becoming acting president of the beleaguered nation earlier this month.

In fact, Rodríguez has been on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s radar for years and was even labeled a “priority target” in 2022, which the DEA reserves for suspects believed to have “significant influence” on the drug trade, according to records obtained by The Associated Press and more than a half-dozen current and former U.S. law enforcement officials.

According to records, the DEA collected a detailed intelligence dossier on Rodríguez dating back to at least 2018; This dossier catalogs his known associates and allegations ranging from drug smuggling to gold smuggling. A confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels at the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” records show. As recently as last year, Maduro was linked to the alleged bagman. Alex SaabThe person who US authorities arrested in 2020 on money laundering charges.

The U.S. government has never publicly accused Rodriguez of any crimes. As far as Maduro’s inner circle is concerned, he is not among the more than a dozen Venezuelan officials accused of drug trafficking along with the ousted president.

Rodríguez’s name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, many of which are ongoing, involving agents in field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York, the AP has learned. The AP was unable to determine the specific focus of each investigation.

Three current and former DEA agents who reviewed records at the AP’s request said they showed intense interest in Rodríguez during his tenure as vice president, which began in 2018. They were not authorized to discuss the DEA investigations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Records reviewed by the AP do not explain why Rodríguez was elevated to “priority target”; this is an appointment that requires extensive documentation to justify additional investigative resources. The agency has hundreds of priority targets at any given time, and having that label doesn’t necessarily lead to criminal charges.

“He was on the rise, so it’s not surprising that he became a high-priority target in that role,” said Kurt Lunkenheimer, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who handled many Venezuela-related cases. “The problem is, when people talk about you and you become a high-priority target, there’s a difference between that and the evidence that supports an indictment.”

Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The DEA and the U.S. Department of Justice also did not respond to requests for comment. Asked whether the president trusts Rodríguez, the White House told the AP that Trump had referred to previous comments about a “very good conversation” he had with the acting president a day earlier on Wednesday. He met with CIA Director John Ratcliffe in Caracas.

Immediately after Maduro’s capture, Trump began heaping praise on Rodríguez last week, calling him a “fantastic person” who was in close contact with officials in Washington, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Steve Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in America, said the DEA’s interest in Rodríguez comes despite Trump trying to appoint him as protector of American interests in post-Maduro Venezuela.

Dudley, who has been researching Venezuela for years, said: “The current Venezuelan government is a criminal-hybrid regime. The only way to achieve a strong position in the regime is to at least encourage criminal activities.” “This isn’t a bug in the system. It’s the system.”

These sentiments were echoed by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. met with Trump He is at the White House on Thursday to press for more U.S. support for Venezuelan democracy.

“The American justice system has enough information about him,” Machado said, referring to Rodríguez. “His profile is pretty clear.”

Rodríguez, 56, rose to power in Venezuela as a loyal aide to Maduro, with whom he shares a deeply leftist bent stemming from the death of his socialist father in police custody when he was just 7 years old. Although he blamed the United States for his father’s death, he worked steadily to court American investments as secretary of state and later as vice president during the first Trump administration, hiring lobbyists close to Trump and even ordering the state oil company to donate $500,000 to the inaugural committee.

The charm offensive failed as Trump, at Rubio’s urging, pressured Maduro to hold free and fair elections. In September 2018,White House approves Rodriguezhe describes it as key to Maduro’s grip on power and his ability to “consolidate his authoritarian rule.” So was he Previously approved by the European Union.

However, these allegations focused on his threat to Venezuelan democracy, not his alleged involvement in corruption.

“Venezuela is a failed state that supports terrorism, corruption, human rights abuses and drug trafficking at the highest levels. There is nothing political in this analysis,” said former DEA agent Rob Zachariasiewicz, who has long conducted investigations of high-level Venezuelan officials and is now managing partner of Elicius Intelligence, a specialist investigative firm. “Delcy Rodríguez is part of this criminal organization.”

DEA records reviewed by the AP provide an unprecedented look at the agency’s interest in Rodríguez. Much of this was directed by the Virginia-based unit’s elite Special Operations Division, which worked with prosecutors in Manhattan to charge Maduro.

One of the recordings alleges that an unnamed confidential informant linked Rodríguez to hotels on Margarita Island, which were used as fronts to launder money. The AP could not independently verify the information.

The United States has long viewed the resort island northeast of mainland Venezuela as a strategic hub for drug trafficking routes to the Caribbean and Europe. Numerous smugglers have been arrested or sought refuge here over the years, including representatives of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel.

Records also show the feds are examining Rodríguez’s role in government contracts awarded to Maduro ally Saab; investigations continue even after the incident. President Joe Biden pardoned him in 2023 As part of a prisoner exchange for Americans imprisoned in Venezuela.

The Colombian businessman became one of Venezuela’s top fixers after US sanctions cut off his access to foreign currency and Western banks. He was arrested in 2020 on federal money laundering charges while traveling from Venezuela to Iran to negotiate oil deals that would help both countries bypass sanctions.

DEA records also show agents were interested in Rodríguez’s alleged involvement in corruption allegations between the government and her longtime romantic partner, Omar Nassif-Sruji, the brother of Yussef Nassif. Nassif-Sruji and Nassif did not respond to emails and text messages seeking comment.

Companies the two brothers registered in Hong Kong received more than $650 million in contracts from the Venezuelan government between 2017 and 2019 to import food and dialysis medicine, according to copies of contracts obtained by a Venezuelan investigative journalism organization in 2021. Armando.info.

Taken together, the DEA investigations underscore the long exercise of power in Venezuela, ranked by Transparency International as the third most corrupt country in the world. For Rodríguez, these also represent a razor-sharp sword over his head; It gives life to Trump’s threat immediately after Maduro’s ouster that if he did not fall in line he would “pay a very big price, probably a bigger price than Maduro.” The president added that he wanted the United States to provide “full access” to the country’s vast oil reserves and other natural resources.

“Being the leader of a highly corrupt regime for over a decade makes it logical that he would be a prime target for investigation,” said David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades. “He certainly knows this, and that gives the US government influence over him. He may fear that if he does not comply with the Trump administration’s demands, he could face impeachment like Maduro.”

Mustian reported from New York.

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS), which includes an upcoming documentary.