US Charges Ex-Venezuela Official With 5.5 Ton Cocaine Smuggling - Justice Department

US Charges Ex-Venezuela Official With 5.5 Ton Cocaine Smuggling - Justice Department

The United States is charging Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a former Venezuelan government official, with smuggling over five and a half tons of cocaine from his country to Mexico, a day after he was arrested in Madrid, Spain, the Department of Justice said on Friday

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th September, 2021) The United States is charging Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a former Venezuelan government official, with smuggling over five and a half tons of cocaine from his country to Mexico, a day after he was arrested in Madrid, Spain, the Department of Justice said on Friday.

"The indictment charges Carvajal Barrios with participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy and a conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, including a 5.6-ton shipment of cocaine transported from Venezuela to Mexico in April 2006, along with related firearms offenses," the department said in a press release.

Carvajal Barrios, also known as "El Pollo," is also charged with using and possessing machine guns and other destructive devices in furtherance of his alleged narco-terrorism and cocaine importation conspiracies, the release continued. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life, the Justice Department said.

Carvajal Barrios, 61, now a Venezuelan national residing in Spain, among other places, is charged with participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life and of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, the release added.

From: Martin Sieff - [email protected]