Another Ton Of Coke, Right Under The Bolivarian Revolution’s Eyes September 22, 2013 pariscocaine A few weeks ago, a good friend was traveling to Europe, when he was stopped right after Maiquetia immigration and interrogated by some officials. When it was determined that he was only going for a few days, the questions got more direct 
and unnerving, as they were directly suggesting that he may be carrying drugs on him. Unfortunately, in the world of digital communications, he was carrying no papers about his meeting and did not have on him his ID from work. He was asked if he minded having an X-Ray done, which he clearly didn’t. At that point, he was moved to a room with other “suspects” and taken away from the airport to some form of dispensary run by Cubans near Catia La Mar. By now, the whole process was quite unnerving, as it was already past the departure time of the airplane and he was far from the airport and did not know if he would miss his flight or not. An X-ray was done, obviously showing nothing and he and the others were returned to the airport to catch their flight, which was delayed two hours because of them. This story comes to mind, because French authorities revealed this week, that 1,3 Tons of cocaine were found in an Air France airplane arriving from Maiquetia. The stash was found in 30 suitcases, which cnn describes a “colorful” and which did not belong to any of the passengers on the plane. Imagine this, in an airport where individuals are x-rayed to see if they have drugs in their stomachs, 30 suitcases full of cocaine, worth close to a quarter billion dollars are “sneaked in” on to the airplane. This requires the cooperation of the authorities, of Air Franceemployees, of the National Guard and of the same people that basically harassed my friend. But that is not the problem. The problem is that this find, proves how rotten Venezuela is when, in a facility controlled by the military, anyone can move one Ton of drugs and succeed. To give you scale, this is the largest drug catch in Frances’ history. This factoid alone should raise concerns about how screwed up Venezuela is. Another Ton Of Coke, Right Under The Bolivarian Revolution’s Eyes So far, there has been no statement from the Minister of the Interior and Justice. The Prosecutor’s office opened an investigation and faster that you can say “Maduro is in China”, they detained three National Guardsmen: Two Sargents and one Lieutenant. Sure, quite believable that these three lowly Guardsmen put together an operation worth a quarter billion dollars. This in a country that has a few Generals in the DEA’s watch or is it black list? Meanwhile the French took ten days to reveal the that they caught the drug, before making their own detentions. Interesting, no? And Maduro says he wants an Enabling Bill to fight corruption, when his own military and his own security is immersed with drug traffickers to the hilt, as shown by this case. The delay in making any announcements in itself suggests that they were scrambling to see how to react publicly. In any other country, the Airport would be intervened and its Head removed, until the investigation was completed. But General Graterol, Director of the airport is high ranking, as well as close to Diosdado, very powerful. In one of those crazy things that only happen in the revolution, he is not only Director of the Airport, but President of airline Conviasa. They can barely do one job well, and they are given two. But think about it: A Ton of cocaine not only was loaded in Maiquetia, but how did it get there from wherever it came from? Too much complicity, at very high levels. Like Maletagate, Illaramendi, Bandes, Corpoelec, etc, etc, etc, the case will blow over with time, nothing will happen, the case will be shelved, forgotten in the myriad cases of corruption of the revolution, many of them which hit too close to power and too close for comfort. Funny how most of these cases are always discovered, investigated and announced abroad, no?