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Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello reported the arrest of four men with more than 3,600 kilos of cocaine and named an alleged DEA agent as responsible for the shipment. He also criticized the US for talking about a boat allegedly loaded with fentanyl that had left the country.

On Wednesday, September 17, the Minister of the Interior, Justice, and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, denounced an alleged operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Venezuelan waters, which he said was intended to implicate the country in drug trafficking. He asserted that it was a false flag operation intended to accuse Venezuela of some kind of atrocities.

He reported that four citizens were captured transporting 3,692 kilos of cocaine in the early hours of Monday, September 15. The men were identified as Joeluis José Rodríguez Ramos (captain and GPS operator), Jesús Antonio Quilarte Carreño (sailor), Jhonny José Salazar Gutiérrez (sailor), and Carlos Alberto Bravo Lemus (sailor). The latter allegedly spent seven years in prison in Puerto Rico for drug trafficking. He asserted that this drug shipment left Colombian territory.

Like the United States, Cabello showed a video during a press conference on Wednesday, September 17, recorded in the midst of the operation. He gave a true account, verifiable with the capture of the four men, and affirmed that Venezuela has complied with all established protocols. He insisted:"We did not kill them because we do not have the authority to kill anyone, to apply the death penalty to anyone. We are a responsible government with proven effective anti-drug operations."

In this regard, the vice president of the policy, citizen security and peace sector also specified that on the boat, four horsepower (300 each), boarded, they found 100 bags of cocaine hydrochloride, a satellite phone, two smartphones, two radio transmitters, a GPS and 2,400 liters of fuel in 28 tanks.

Diosdado Cabello assured that The owner of that drug is a man named Levy Enrique López Batiz, who was accused of being a DEA agent and drug trafficker. and linked him to a citizen, whose citizenship he did not specify, named Gercio Parra Machado, who indicated that he operates in the Colombian Guajira.

The competent courts and the Public Prosecutor's Office, based on the arguments and testimony of these gentlemen, will make the appropriate charges, he indicated.

Is fentanyl circulating in the country or not?

The Interior Minister spoke out two days after US President Donald Trump reported on the attack on a second drug boat, allegedly carrying cocaine and fentanyl, and the destruction of a third boat, saying:"You never know. They say it was carrying drugs, but who saw the drugs? They say it was carrying fentanyl. The second one, from here in Venezuela, fentanyl? Very hard to believe."

In Diosdado Cabello's opinion, the US should look for something more credible or tell the world that what it truly wants is regime change in Venezuela.

Although the minister denied that fentanyl trafficking had ever been found in the country, it should be remembered that in 2023, the Táchira Governor's Office reported that the authorities of the entity A man was arrested with 45 doses of fentanyl At the time, Governor Freddy Bernal stated that it was the first seizure of that type of drug in the country.

That same year, authorities in Portuguesa and Vargas also announced the arrest of several people for trafficking fentanyl. Three men and a woman in Guanare, the director of the Dr. Miguel Oraá University Hospital in Portuguesa, and another 40-year-old man in Vargas were arrested for trafficking nine ampoules of fentanyl and 718 grams of cocaine.

Then, in June of last year, the National Guard said they arrested five people in Zulia for trafficking 36 ampoules of fentanyl.

On the other hand, Cabello referred to the boarding of a fishing vessel by a US vessel and stated: They (the US) want to plant drugs on a Venezuelan vessel and affirmed that with Donald Trump's deployment of warships in the Caribbean, fishermen from anywhere in the world who operate in the Caribbean zone have a death sentence hanging over them.