The broker told his client that he had a relative in the “little red party” with connections to the “famous suns” who, for an upfront fee, would guarantee the safe passage of the container of cocaine onto the ship docked in the Venezuelan port.
The cocaine – a 32 kilogram shipment hidden inside two electrical generators – was destined for Libya.
The broker, alias Luisito, was trying to assure the customer, alias Julio, that Venezuelan military officers would not steal his money or cargo, according to wiretap records obtained by CBC News.
“Someone has to be surety,” Julio said, according to the cellphone recording.
“They’re military, you don’t need a warranty with them…they work there. The day the truck arrives, they get it and put it on [on the ship]Luisito said.
CBC News has obtained more than a dozen wiretapping recordings from a successful two-year Colombian federal police investigation into a multinational drug trafficking organization based in Colombia.
The organization transported the cocaine to the US, Europe, Asia and North Africa by air using human drug mules and by sea in containers.
Luis Ernesto Galvis Martinez, aka Luisito, left, and Luis Fernando Martinez, aka Julio, was caught on mobile phone wiretapping, planning to send cocaine to Libya with the help of the Venezuelan military. (CBC)
The two-year investigation, which culminated in 2016, was initiated by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Cell phone intercepts captured members of the group discussing relationships with Venezuelan military officials who monitored the international port of Guarano in Falcón state.
The Venezuelan government has denied any involvement in drug trafficking, and no government party or military officials were captured in wiretaps obtained by CBC News.
In the wiretapped conversations, the broker Luisito repeatedly used the nickname “Sorii” whenever he mentioned senior officers of the Venezuelan military. The nickname refers to the insignia that high-ranking Venezuelan military officers wear on their uniforms to indicate their rank.
He would also mention the color red whenever he referred to the ruling party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
“These conversations help us understand that, indeed, the Cartel of the Suns exists… They are high-ranking officers, generals, who had the power to control all cocaine shipments in their country,” said a former Colombian federal narcotics agent who worked on the case.
CBC News is not releasing the identity of the former agent because he was not authorized to disclose internal details of police investigations.
More than 800 kilograms of cocaine were seized inside a plane coming from Venezuela to Brus Laguna, Gracias a Dios department, Honduras, in 2020. (AFP via Getty Images)
The former agent said he came across the term “Cartel of the Suns” in other investigations through conversations with confidential informants. He said the Venezuelan regime has close ties to the drug trade.
“The sources told us about secret runways where they sent planes loaded with substances and the power they had to control everything related to drug trafficking,” the agent said.
He said the US federal criminal case against captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, was likely built from similar cases.
Maduro was captured along with Flores during a US military strike on January 3. They face charges in New York Federal Court of conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, among other charges.
The US indictment against Maduro and Flores describes the Cartel of the Suns as “a patronage system” in which “Venezuelan elites enrich themselves through drug trafficking and the protection of their drug-trafficking partners.”
Wiretaps obtained by CBC News, all recorded in April 2016, revealed how Julio planned to use fake Venezuelan ID cards and a local company to transport the cocaine in a container filled with the two generators and other similar equipment so that it weighed at least a ton.
Julio wanted to move the container by sea from Venezuela to Brazil and then to Libya. He was burned by another contact before turning to Luisito, a broker who said he had recently moved 50 kilograms of cocaine to Portugal hidden in a shipment of several tons of coal, according to wiretaps.
Luisito said he had a relative who was part of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
“He did some little things there and he has a little power there in the Punto Fijo,” Luisito said, according to a wiretap intercepted at 6:10 p.m. on April 4, 2016.
Punto Fijo is the town next to Guarano International Port, which is located on a peninsula about 548 km northwest of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.
“And working with these people you mention isn’t dangerous?” Julio said, in a second phone call intercepted the same day at 6:43 p.m
“The little red ones? No, they’re the ones in charge of the ports… there’s no more DEA [U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration]it’s nothing,” Luisito said.
“I don’t want him to steal [the product]Julio said.
“They don’t need to, they are the ones who do this with the famous suns, they are connected to the suns that send loads,” Luisito said. “They have their own ways of sending things.”
Luisito said his relative was dealing with a high-ranking officer and three subordinates working together.
He said the military completely controls the port and each exchange runs its own side business, charging a basic fee of US$8,000 and more, depending on the quantity, to allow containers to be loaded onto ships.
“They’ve been doing this for a long time… and when I told them [my relative] that it was only 16 kg of cocaine [per generator]he said it wasn’t much, if you only knew how much [cocaine] they ship from here,” Luisito said in the same phone call.
Julio was still worried about it being stolen.
“How do I know the police won’t steal the money or steal it [generators]?” he said, during a third intercepted phone call at 7pm the same day.
“They send products daily… sometimes through the airport and sometimes by ship, because what they care about is money, they are not interested in bolivars. [the Venezuelan currency]are interested [U.S.] dollars, because they send them to offshore tax havens,” said Luisito.
Luisito told Julio that he just needed to make sure his papers were there to go through the customs process because the military officers were only in charge of “anti-narcotics screening”.
The former Colombian federal police drug agent told CBC News that the shipment ended up in Libya, but that authorities eventually charged Luisito and Julio, who were later convicted and jailed.