The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned Colombian law enforcement several times that a Florida resident tangled up in last year’s slapdash failed coup in Venezuela may be part of an international arms smuggling ring.
In a letter dated last June 1, the Homeland Security Investigations division of DHS warned Colombia’s customs police agency that it had been tracking calls to a cellular phone from the 305 area code that was registered to Yacsy Álvarez Mirabal.
She’s the Venezuelan national who owns a home in Tampa, frequents Miami and was arrested last September in connection to a weapons seizure linked to what became a botched Venezuelan coup launched from Colombia.
The letter from Julio Magallan, the adjunct attache for Homeland Security Investigations at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, alerted about a weapons ring under investigation for allegedly trafficking arms from the United States and Europe to Colombia.
According to information in hand, the letter warned, “possible members of said criminal organization are carrying out coordination for criminal purposes” through that cellphone number “used by alias Alex, alias Yacsy Álvarez.”
Magallan had also sent letters to the same agency last May 25 and June 10, alerting about two Colombian cellphones allegedly used by Álvarez.
The letters appear in Colombian court documents. A federal prosecutor there on Thursday presented formal evidence against Álvarez, who was arrested last September and has been held on weapons smuggling charges.
In more than 1,000 pages of court filings and transcripts, prosecutors allege Álvarez arranged for the delivery of 26 imported assault rifles, along with battle gear, helmets and night-vision goggles. It is not clear how the firearms got in the country.
They built their case against Álvarez, who went by the nom de guerre Alex, with testimony from a hired driver, Jorge Molinares, who claims he was unwittingly ferrying arms to an area where Venezuelan army deserters were training for their coup effort.
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Molinares said he was paid 400,000 pesos, or about $110, by Álvarez to drive suitcases from the Colombian city of Barranquilla to the Riohacha region. When stopped by police, Molinares called Álvarez via WhatsApp on the Miami cellphone number to alert that he’d been stopped and police found weapons, according to court records. He testified that Álvarez told him to offer the police three million pesos, about $825, to make the matter go away and then blocked his calls. An officer who stopped Molinares said Álvarez offered him and the driver each three million pesos.
The allegations add to the intrigue surrounding Álvarez, 40, who, according to court records, had 11 bank cards, IDs from Colombia, Venezuela and Spain and nearly $10,000 in cash.
Alvarez’s lawyer, Alejandro Carranza, told the Miami Herald he would comment at a later time on the allegations and evidence provided by the Colombian prosecutor’s office but earlier posed questions concerning the authorities handling of an alleged member of the plot, Jimmy Montesinos, who had been detained and released twice.
Carranza said Montesinos had been caught carrying more than 30 cellphones and other equipment that he admitted was destined for use by the Venezuelan military insurgents training near the Venezuelan border before the coup was launched. Carranza said that Montesinos’ arrest is part of an accretion of evidence that the Colombian government had prior knowledge of the plot.
In an exclusive interview from jail late last year with the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, Álvarez proclaimed her innocence and said she is being made a scapegoat by Colombian authorities embarrassed by the failed coup launched from their country. She said she participated in planning meetings that Colombia knew about. Her lawyer has said she cooperated with the FBI and Colombian authorities before her arrest.
Denying taking part in the coup, Álvarez insists she was just a translator for a former Venezuelan major general named Cliver Alcalá Cordones and ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, whose Florida company Silvercorp USA was training and organizing the coup plotters.
Early last year, the U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward for the capture of Alcalá, alleging he was part of a Venezuelan government drug smuggling ring. He surrendered in March 2020 in Barranquilla and was quickly extradited. Early this year, during U.S. court proceedings, U.S. prosecutors revealed he faces another probe in the United States.
Alcalá’s surrender followed a radio interview where he said the weapons seized in what now is the Álvarez prosecution were his doing, on behalf of the Venezuelan people who sought liberation from the Maduro regime.
For reasons still unclear, despite Alcalá’s extradition the coup effort continued and culminated in May with the incursion that led to the slaughter of the first wave of self-described liberators. Goudreau was featured in a joint investigation by the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald and McClatchy that detailed how the coup came about with the knowledge of some in or tied to the Trump administration.
Survivors of the botched effort blame infiltration by the Maduro regime for the killing of participants and the capture and imprisonment of two Americans who worked with Goudreau — Luke Denman and Airan Berry.
Shortly after the May 2020 botched coup, the FBI raided a Florida apartment where Goudreau was hiding, seizing cash. It was later returned and Goudreau, a decorated soldier who did multiple tours in Afghanistan, has not been charged in the United States in connection to the arms sales in Colombia or the coup attempt.
Goudreau brought a lawsuit in South Florida late last year against Juan José Rendón, a political consultant closely aligned with Venezuelan legislator Juan Guaidó, whom the Trump administration in January 2019 began calling the legitimate president of oil-rich Venezuela.
The security consultant claimed he has not been paid for his efforts training the would-be liberators. A contract filed as evidence in the lawsuit showed that Guaidó had a clause allowing him to disavow the effort if it failed.
The captured Americans brought in by Goudreau were sentenced last summer to 20 years in a Venezuelan prison. Former New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson continues to negotiate on behalf of their families for release.
The new Biden administration has so far said very little about Guaidó, Venezuela or the captured Americans.
Fuente: Bradenton Herald