Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, who took office in early January, has been on the radar of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for years, and in 2022 she was even designated a "priority target," a designation the DEA reserves for suspects believed to have "significant influence" over the drug trade, current and former US law enforcement officials said.
The DEA has compiled a detailed intelligence file on Rodriguez dating back to 2018, containing reports on her known associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling, sources told the AP.
A confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodriguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita "as a front for money laundering," and last year Rodriguez was linked to alleged Venezuelan smuggler Alex Sabo, who was arrested by US authorities in 2020 on money laundering charges.
The US government has never publicly accused Rodriguez of any crime, and she is not among more than a dozen current Venezuelan officials accused of drug trafficking along with the country's ousted President Nicolas Maduro, who is on trial in New York on charges of involvement in drug and arms trafficking.
Delcy Rodriguez's name has appeared in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, several of which are still ongoing, involving agents in field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York, the AP has learned.
Three current and former DEA agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that agency records indicate intense interest in Rodriguez throughout much of her tenure as vice president, which began in 2018.
The DEA is interested in Rodriguez even as US President Donald Trump tries to position her as a protector of American interests to navigate an unstable post-Maduro Venezuela, said Steve Dudley, co-director of the organization Insight Crime, which focuses on organized crime in America, Tanjug reports.
"The current government of Venezuela is a criminal-hybrid regime. The only way to get to a position of power in the regime is, at the very least, to encourage criminal activity. It's not a flaw in the system, it's the system," Dudley said.
Bonus video:
