Is Venezuela a Narco State?

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00:00The stuff about the drugs, I mean, I know that's been widely reported in the media.

00:05I mean, but yesterday we spoke to the CIA's former station chief in Caracas,

00:10and he basically said Venezuela is a narco state and that Nicolas Maduro was the kingpin in that organization.

00:18I mean, how would you respond to that?

00:19I would just respond with, I mean, the assessment of international organizations

00:25and people knowledgeable of that type of activity.

00:30Yes, Latin America is a region that produces drugs,

00:35but Venezuela is not a hotspot for the production, for instance, of cocaine,

00:40which is produced mainly in Colombia.

00:43It is well known that if the concerns of the U.S. authorities is fentanyl,

00:48well, it is not produced even in Latin America, and when it gets to Latin America,

00:52it goes through the United States, through the Mexican border.

00:56So somehow it is strange that these accusations have been focusing on Venezuela.

01:03Also, very recently, as recent as yesterday, the Department of Justice of the United States

01:09dropped the inclusion of the so-called cartel, called Cartel of the Sons,

01:15Cartel de los Soles in Spanish, as a narco-terrorist organization,

01:19because they couldn't prove its very existence.

01:24Again, who could imagine that such a cartel or a narco-state exists with a president at his head?

01:32And at the same time, making the decision,

01:34and this is a decision that the Trump administration itself has made,

01:38to preserve the members of the Venezuelan government

01:41and the members of the Venezuelan state in place,

01:44because they deem them more capable than any other option to run the country.

01:49So I think this argument was, you know, like in politics,

01:54accompanying the narrative to build up the pressure around Venezuela.

01:58But again, I'm not an expert, I'm not a lawyer,

02:01and we'll have to see how the process goes.

02:04But I think that in general, that designation for Venezuela is not necessarily accurate.

02:11I think part.

02:11But I think that in the future of Trek and가