In the criminal record presented last Tuesday by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, two new names appear: Erik Prince and Luis Almagro. A new category has been created for them: financiers of "foreign mercenaries" who are trained in camps set up in Ecuadorian territory and smuggled into Venezuela through the states of Sucre or Táchira, according to the Interior Ministry.
"This is a connected plot," Cabello emphasized last Tuesday, recounting the various operations dismantled since September of last year, with the arrest of justice system officials, businesspeople, politicians, military personnel, and police officers, among others.
Cabello explained that the recurring idea of this sector of the Venezuelan far right is to generate hotbeds of violence by activating criminal gangs and bringing in mercenaries equipped with their respective weapons. This is where American magnate Erik Prince comes into play. He served as a military officer in his country and later dedicated himself to providing military and human resources for specific operations. To this end, he founded the company Blackwater, which was reportedly involved in the murder of 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
Prince was an officer in the United States Navy and a member of the SEAL Command (Navy's Special Operations Force), with which he was deployed to Haiti, among other missions where there were conflicts.
And to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, Prince proposed the initiative of "monetizing" that war by raising funds through the platform Ya Casi Venezuela, which had its biggest publicity on Times Square Boulevard, New York, United States, on whose giant screens appeared the face of the tycoon saying: "Venezuela, you voted on July 28 for freedom, now the time has come to vote with dollars, democracy will prevail, we are about to arrive. Ya Casi Venezuela."
Almagro is the other financier of destabilization operations in Venezuela, according to the criminal record presented by Minister Cabello.
This individual was Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), where he supported then-Representative Juan Guaidó, who proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela in January 2019 and attempted to invade the country on February 23 of that year via the border with Táchira.
Zacharias's cells and The Transporter
Venezuelan authorities have detected that different cells were created to carry out specific tasks within the overall plan aimed at the violent overthrow of President Nicolás Maduro. "Each cell carries out a mission and doesn't know the mission of other cells; in fact, they don't even know each other. You only know the person in your cell," explained a Venezuelan intelligence chief who has monitored the destabilization plans.
For example, the shipment and receipt of weapons seized in Los Ruices, Sucre municipality (Miranda), was handed over to a cell led from abroad by Eleomar José Vargas Vargas (Zacarias), who has connections with drug trafficker Marlon José Meza Bastardo.
Zacarías (fugitive) sent from Colombia a gun lot, chargers and cartridges to alias Andrés (fugitive), responsible in Venezuela for the delivery of this war material to Wilfredo Vargas (captured) and he in turn would take it to Petare where he is received by two women identified as Lisbeth Rodríguez and Piedad del Rosario Caballero.
The two women and Vargas were arrested two weeks ago on the main avenue of Los Cortijos, Los Ruices, Sucre municipality (Miranda). Among the items seized was a thermobaric (high explosive incendiary) warhead for an RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launcher, including its propellant.
Thermobaric weapons are primarily used against structures, installations, and buildings. "It's used to attack the sentry boxes of military structures," explained one expert.
The other recently dismantled cell was led by Colombian Ender Yesid Gómez Soto (El Transportador), who was contacted by alias Abel to transport explosive devices from Colombia to Caracas inside a spare tire. His mission was to take them to Ureña (Táchira), where he would deliver them to alias El Flaco, who would then bring them to Caracas, where other members of that cell would plant them in the Colombian embassy, the Supreme Court of Justice, Fuerte Tiuna, and the National Electoral Council, explained Minister Diosdado Cabello.
The San Vicente was shot down
Police and military agencies continue to track down members of criminal gangs who have been recruited by the far-right sector seeking the violent overthrow of President Maduro. In this regard, last Wednesday, Xavier Stiven Rivas Sanabria (24), alias El San Vicente, was killed. This individual confronted CICPC officers in the El Viñedo I sector, Los Tacariguas parish, Girardot municipality (Maracay), Aragua, according to the report published by CICPC.
"He was a member of the Jeison Comino criminal gang," says the publication of the scientific police. This last subject, identified as Jeison Alexander Lorca Salazar (32), was captured on November 16, 2024 on a farm located in the Los Santos municipality, Santander, Colombia.
Venezuela is requesting Colombia to release Jeison Comino to trial here for aggravated extortion, criminal conspiracy, illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition, obstruction of free trade, and terrorism. The extradition request was admissible by the Supreme Court of Justice, sitting in its Criminal Chamber, pursuant to ruling 685 of December 2024.
The sentence that supports the extradition of the subject contains a report from the Public Ministry where it describes Jeison Comino as one of the allies of Carlos Enrique Gómez Rodríguez (El Conejo), the latter killed on February 8, 2023 in Las Tejerías (Aragua), during the deployment of Operation Gran Cacique Guaicaipuro.
The mission assigned to Jeison Comino within the criminal structure led by El Conejo was to "displace residents from their homes and establish collection centers for members of the organization and thus facilitate the criminal activity of these groups in the town of Tejerías," the Criminal Court's ruling states.
But it is also added in that document from the highest court in Venezuela, that at that time (February 2023) El Conejo ''maintains direct links with Héctor Rustherford Guerrero Flores (El Niño Guerrero) currently held in the Tocorón Penitentiary Center from where he directs, coordinates, plans and orders the members of his criminal organization (Tren de Aragua) all criminal and terrorist actions that generate general public anxiety and alarm in the population.''
Niño Guerrero fled to Colombia days before the takeover of the Tocorón prison, which occurred on September 20, 2023. But before Niño Guerrero and his collaborators left, Manuel Antonio Alvarado Román (Manuel Chevrolet), leader of Los Chevrolet, a gang that the suspect has attempted to reorganize from Colombia with a view to generating violence ahead of the municipal elections scheduled for July 27, Minister Cabello reported. Four members of that gang were killed last weekend in Villa de Cura (Aragua). In addition, a son of Manuel Chevrolet was captured in Táchira, according to the Minister of the Interior.
