Former Chavista General 'El Pollo' Carvajal pleads guilty to narco-terrorism charges

Hugo "El Pollo" Carvajal, 65, a former high-ranking Venezuelan official, pleaded guilty in a New York court to conspiracy to traffic cocaine to the United States and narco-terrorism on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), among other charges.

"The deeply troubling reality is that there are powerful foreign government officials who conspire to flood the United States with drugs that kill and debilitate," said Jay Clayton, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

"Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios was once one of the most powerful men in Venezuela. For years, he and other officials in the Cartel of the Suns used cocaine as a weapon—flooding New York and other American cities with poison," he added, referring to the Venezuelan regime's cartel of top military officers, which Washington accuses President Nicolás Maduro himself of leading.

According to court documents, El Pollo, as part of the Cartel of the Suns, corrupted key Venezuelan institutions—from the military to the judiciary—to smuggle tons of drugs into the United States. To advance their goals and increase power and wealth, the cartel forged alliances with the Colombian terrorist group known as the FARC.

For example, around 2006, he allegedly shipped a plane carrying 5.6 tons of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico, where authorities seized the shipment. He also allegedly supplied the FARC with automatic weapons and explosives and coordinated the transport of illicit drugs. To protect these operations, he is accused of participating in kidnappings and murders.

According to the same documents, Carvajal held several public positions, which he allegedly exploited for these illicit activities. Between 2004 and 2011, and again in 2013, he led the Dirección de Inteligencia Militar (DIM), Venezuela’s military intelligence agency.

When Maduro took over the presidency from Hugo Chávez, El Pollo began distancing himself from the regime. In 2019, he backed the opposition and fled to Spain. He stayed a fugitive there for two years until his capture in Madrid and subsequent extradition to the United States.

While still in Spain, Carvajal accused former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of receiving a gold mine in Venezuela as a gift from Maduro and claimed that the leftist Podemos party was illegally funded by Caracas.

The charges against "El Pollo" Carvajal

The former revolutionary leader pleaded guilty to four charges:

If found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.