After what appeared to be a stolen election, Nicolás Maduro today assumes another six-year mandate as Venezuela’s president. Heading a regime that regulates illegal economies, relying on criminal rents and partners to stay afloat, Maduro will solidify Venezuela’s position as a regional crime hub.
On the streets of Caracas, security forces were omnipresent. The tension was palpable in the Venezuelan capital. Since July 28, when Maduro claimed victory despite opposition counts from voting machines showing a landslide victory for Edmundo González, Maduro has imposed a relentless wave of repression.
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Thousands of opposition politicians, NGO directors, journalists, and protestors have been detained by security forces, in what the United Nations has called “unprecedented repression.”
“The situation is highly concerning. We have witnessed an intensification of violence since the presidential elections in July, not only involving state security forces but also armed civilians who have publicly expressed their support for Maduro’s government,” said a young Caracas lawyer, fearful but determined to stay in the country, come what may.
Maduro has used every repressive tool at his disposal, including illegal armed groups and irregular paramilitary units known as “colectivos.” Since he took office in 2013, presiding over economic collapse and hyperinflation, Maduro has created a hybrid criminal regime, relying on illegal actors and the criminal rents they manage to maintain the loyalty of generals and senior political figures.
Venezuela has long been a transit nation for Colombian cocaine on its way to US and European markets, but under Maduro it has become a cocaine producing nation, with coca crops and drug labs. Most of these are concentrated along the border with Colombia, managed by Colombian rebel groups like the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and a dissident faction of the now demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — FARC), known as the Segunda Marquetalia.
These Colombian groups, ideologically aligned with the socialist Bolivarian Revolution, enjoy protection and support from Maduro. This is particularly true of the ELN, which was founded in Cuba in the 1960s and still has close links to the Cuban regime, which supports Maduro, providing intelligence agents that closely monitor the loyalty of the Venezuelan armed forces, whose support is crucial to the maintenance of the Maduro regime.
Maduro also relies on global smuggling networks and international criminal brokers to move Venezuela’s gold and oil, necessary to circumvent controls and international sanctions.
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A further six years under Maduro is likely to trigger another wave of migration, as more Venezuelans join around eight million of their compatriots who have already fled, looking for opportunities abroad. Trailing these migrants and preying on them every step of their journey are Venezuelan criminal gangs, led by the Tren De Aragua, a prison gang that went transnational as the exodus grew. Venezuelan organized crime now has a permanent presence in Colombia, Peru and Chile, with increasing reports of infiltration into the United States.
The prospect of state-embedded organized crime within the Maduro regime regulating and protecting cocaine and gold smuggling networks, prompting another wave of migration and the strengthening of transnational Venezuelan criminal syndicates, will present threats to nations across Latin America and the Caribbean, with effects being felt as far as the United States.
Maduro’s protection of Colombian rebel groups like the ELN and the Segunda Marquetalia makes the chances of President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace plan to end the Colombian civil conflict very remote. These groups will feed violence and conflict in Colombia, running drug smuggling and extortion rackets from within Venezuela, beyond the reach of Colombian security forces.
An extended Maduro presidency will likely feed the Colombian civil conflict, protect the booming global cocaine business, feed illegal networks dedicated to selling oil and gold, while presiding over yet more migration and the exportation of Venezuelan criminal gangs.
Featured Image: Bolivarian National Guard personnel stationed on a street in downtown Caracas on January 5. Credit: Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
