Ex-Venezuelan Spy Chief Extradited to U.S. on Drug Charges After Long Manhunt

BOGOTÁ, Colombia— Hugo Carvajal, a former Venezuelan spy chief long wanted by the U.S. on charges that he collaborated with narco-terrorists to traffic cocaine, was extradited Wednesday to the U.S. from Spain, according to the Justice Department.

Carvajal, a confidant of President Hugo Chávez until his death in 2013, could provide U.S. prosecutors with information on figures in Venezuela’s authoritarian regime involved in cocaine-smuggling, corruption and money laundering, people familiar with his case say. 

Carvajal, 63 years old, known as  “El Pollo,” or “The Chicken,” because of his long neck, has repeatedly denied the U.S.’s allegations, calling them politically motivated. Carvajal is expected to appear before a magistrate court at the Southern District of New York on Thursday and plead not guilty, his defense lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said. 

“Testifying against others—that’s where the real value is,”  said a person who had been close to Carvajal and had worked with U.S. antidrug agents. “He knows about people who are in the structure,” he said, explaining that Carvajal would know about narco-trafficking and kleptocracy in high Venezuelan government circles.

Since 2019, Carvajal had been in Madrid fighting extradition proceedings after breaking from Chávez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, and fleeing from Venezuela.  

Carvajal’s long tenure as the head of the South American nation’s military counterintelligence offers American investigators insights into the inner workings of the Venezuelan regime and its alleged ties to Colombian narcotics traffickers, Marxist guerrillas, arms dealers and international money-laundering operations, said people who have worked on U.S. cases against Venezuelan officials. 

“When you look at what he can provide on intelligence outside the scope of the judicial context, it’s going to be very rich in content,” said Wesley Tabor, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration attaché in Venezuela who had investigated Carvajal. 

“The information could lead to disruptions and dismantlement of various criminal organizations worldwide,” said Tabor, who now heads the Celebrity Consulting Group in Florida. 

Carvajal’s extradition comes as the U.S. has been pressuring Maduro to resume negotiations with the opposition to stage free and fair presidential elections next year. But Maduro, who has angrily bristled at Washington’s sanctions and the indictments against top regime officials, has instead disqualified leading opposition candidates from running in the race and barred European elections observers.

In 2020, U.S. prosecutors in New York’s Southern District charged Maduro, Carvajal and another senior Venezuelan official, Diosdado Cabello,

The Maduro administration has denied the charges, calling them “a collection of dirty, false accusations.” 

Venezuela has angrily denounced the 2021 extradition of Alex Saab, a key Maduro financier who the U.S. accuses of money laundering and helping the Venezuelan government evade U.S. economic sanctions. 

Saab has also denied the charges. But former Venezuelan prosecutors and people familiar with his case say he, like Carvajal, holds confidential information that could aid U.S. intelligence and antinarcotics agents investigating the Maduro regime’s murky financial deals with other U.S. adversaries such as Iran and Russia, which have helped Caracas outlast American sanctions. 

U.S. investigators say they have been painstakingly piecing together information about the regime’s alleged ties to drug trafficking. 

Last month, one of Carvajal’s co-defendants, Cliver Alcalá, a retired Venezuelan army general, told a New York court that he provided protection and weapons, including grenade launchers, to the now-defunct rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Alcala, who pleaded guilty to U.S. charges of collaborating with the FARC, had turned into a critic of Maduro and surrendered to U.S. law enforcement. 

Carvajal had proven more elusive, leading American officials on a long international manhunt. In 2011, U.S. attorneys in New York charged him with conspiracy to smuggle 5.6 tons of cocaine to the U.S. via Mexico in 2006.

In 2014, Carvajal was detained on a U.S. warrant in the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, where the Maduro government was preparing to name him as Venezuela’s envoy. Venezuela’s government pressured Aruba to release him, and he received a hero’s welcome orchestrated by Maduro upon his return to Venezuela.

Carvajal split from the government in 2019 after publicly denouncing Maduro for alleged human rights violations during political protests. 

After fleeing to Spain, Carvajal was arrested again on the U.S. charges in April 2019. Months later, he was released by a Spanish court as his extradition process was under way and went into hiding.  

Write to Kejal Vyas at [email protected] and Juan Forero at [email protected]

Corrections & Amplifications
Venezuela’s former spy chief Hugo Carvajal is 63 years old. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he is 61. (Corrected on July 19)