Hugo Carvajal pleads guilty to four criminal counts including narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine.
A former director of Venezuelan military intelligence has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narcoterrorism charges in a United States federal court, according to the Justice Department, a week before his trial was set to begin.
Hugo Carvajal, who served in the country’s late President Hugo Chavez’s government from 2004 to 2011, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday to four criminal counts including narcoterrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons charges.
Federal prosecutors alleged the former major-general, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan government and military officials, led a drug cartel that attempted to “flood” the US with cocaine.
The cartel partnered with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a now demobilised armed group that the US once considered a “terrorist” organisation, to produce and distribute cocaine, prosecutors alleged.
