Venezuela: The evidence that incriminates Iván Duque as an accomplice of criminal groups

The head of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, accused this Thursday the president of Colombia, Iván Duque, of being an accomplice of the armed criminal groups that operate in Venezuelan territory.

In a press conference, Rodríguez accused Duque of arming, financing and training criminal gangs that have entered Venezuela in “terrorist camps” set up in Colombia. According to the head of Parliament, the objective of these groups would be to generate anxiety in the population and attack the State authorities.

“There are 24 occasions in which we have made true, serious, real complaints, with testimonies, with confessions, with coordinates, with evidence”, said Rodríguez, who reiterated the complaint about the support that the US would have given Colombia in the alleged conspiracy plans against Venezuela.

He assured that for the execution of these actions, Bogotá would also have had the support of the presidents of Chile, Sebastián Piñera; from Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez; from Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro; as well as the former presidents of Argentina, Mauricio Macri; and from Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández.

Links with criminal gangs

Rodríguez maintained that since the beginning of Duque’s government, the criminal groups operating in Venezuela have been contacted by paramilitary gangs and Colombian intelligence, to receive instructions, training, financing and weapons in the neighboring country.

Once they were trained in Colombia -according to the head of Parliament-, the criminals returned to Venezuela to settle in the areas they controlled and began to carry out actions to intimidate the citizens and keep the security forces distracted, while they tried to execute invasions with mercenaries.

Among the groups that Duque would have supported would be the «El Koki» gang, which operated on the Cota 905 in Caracas; that of «Wilexis» in Petare, Miranda state; that of «El Conejo» in Tejerías, Aragua state; «El Malony», in the state of Sucre, among others.

«For example, when the gang of ‘El Koki’ was stationed in the mountains and fired on to the highway, they had a direct order from these far-right groups and from the Colombian intelligence agencies», said the head of parliament. .

In fact, Rodríguez asserted that «El Koki» had been received by the Colombian security forces when the criminal fled Venezuela, persecuted by the authorities.

«These organized criminal groups had resources from drug trafficking and they have resources and weapons from the government of Iván Duque», reiterated the parliamentarian, who anticipated that there will be more news on how Bogotá «arms, trains, cares for and provides logistics to criminal armed gangs, kidnappers, drug traffickers, murderers, in the interior of Venezuela».

Those involved in Venezuela

On the other hand, the head of parliament reiterated that the criminal gangs in Venezuela have links with sectors of the extreme right, headed by Leopoldo López, Juan Guaidó, Gilber Caro, among other politicians who have the protection of the governments of Colombia, Spain and the US.

Likewise, he alleged that these groups, who act outside the law, receive support from supposed Non-Governmental Organizations, among them one called «Pies descalzos» registered in Colombia —which is not the same one that the singer Shakira founded—, and it seems to that it is in charge of capturing children and youth for criminal and paramilitary groups.

During his speech, Rodríguez showed two videos with confessions of detainees by the Venezuelan authorities during the operations carried out in Tejerías, where ‘El Koki’ was killed along with other criminals, who acted with war tactics, armed trenches, anti-personnel mines and presumably received training in Colombia.

In a first video, the testimony of a man identified as «Starlin José Paéz Mujica» appears, who joined the Venezuelan Armed Forces and deserted in mid-2021, when they offered him money to move to Colombia and then join the «El Conejo» gang in Tejerías.

«We traveled to Colombia to receive paramilitary training and we did so monthly, then we returned to Tejerías, until November of last year when ‘El Koki‘ returned to Tejerías», said Páez, who was identified as «the sniper» of the criminal group, which had an arsenal of weapons of war and explosives.

In a second video, a woman identified as María Inés Reyes Silva appears, who would be the partner of Carlos Enrique Gómez Rodríguez, alias «El Conejo». In the recording, she explains that her partner constantly traveled to Colombia to receive training and that he himself had informed her that «El Koki» would return to Venezuela to commit crimes.