Former Venezuela spymaster pleads guilty to narcoterrorism charge ahead of trial
MIAMI (AP) — 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 included 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.
In a letter this week to defense counsel, prosecutors said they believe federal sentencing guidelines call for Carvajal to serve a mandatory minimum of 50 years in prison to a maximum of life.
Nicknamed 'El Pollo,' Spanish for 'the chicken,' Carvajal advised Chávez for more than a decade. He later broke with Marudo, 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 against 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.
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.
Gary Berntsen, a former CIA officer in Latin America who oversaw commandos that hunted al-Qaida, sent a public letter this week to Trump urging the Justice Department to delay the start of Carvajal's trial so officials can 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.
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.
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Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister in New York contributed.
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