Bernal announced increased security measures on the border

The governor of the state of Táchira, Freddy Bernal, reported within the framework of the planned actions regarding the opening of the border next September 26that in the border municipalities Bolívar (San Antonio del Táchira) and Pedro María Ureña, three special units will be installed, which will be accompanied by a considerable increase in security officials in addition to the necessary staff for their operation.

Bernal stressed that “the foot of force” will be reinforced with the increase, as of Monday, of the officers of the Bolivarian National Police and the Táchira Police who will patrol the two border municipalities and the number of motorcycles and patrols will be increased. for a better deployment in the 164 kilometers of the dividing axis between the two nations.

In the case of the special units, the president explained that their installation is scheduled for Tuesday, there will be three in total, which will be interconnected with each other and will have the function of supervising everything related to the management of capital and the development of the shops that will be installed from the commercial reopening.

He stressed that the new control mechanisms are the Financial Intelligence Unit, in charge of monitoring foreign capital “that begins to appear buying premises, merchandise and pretend to launder money from drug trafficking”, the Money Laundering Unit, which “will hand in hand with financial intelligence and will have the function of registering and verifying the origin of the capital that arrives in the two municipalities” and, finally, the Border Strategy Intelligence Unit “which will have direct contact with businessmen and merchants to through secret actions” to avoid extortion and the payment of vaccines to irregular organizations.

The president stressed that in the case of the strategic intelligence unit there is already coordination with the prosecutor’s office and the ruling judge of the state of Táchira (Lawyer Ledy Yorley Pérez Ramírez) so that it is activated at the moment, in which, through the complaint, there is an undue pressure mechanism “the criminal is captured and presented at the order of the prosecution and the maximum weight of the law is applied to him”.

Bernal indicated that in a joint meeting with the governors of the border states and the President of the Republic, the pros and cons and suggestions of the situations that could arise on the border were presented, in the case of Táchira, he stressed that “it could It may be that there are some disturbances in the first weeks because we are coupling, but I can assure you that we will maintain the border as a border of peace.

The governor clarified that every day the controls will be intensified against the “bandits” who will not be able to act on the border axis in a tax manner, “whoever intends to transform this border into a border of illicit businesses against them will exercise the maximum weight.”

He reiterated that the border is “permeable” despite the 2,500 officials who are willing, hence it cannot be guaranteed that nothing will happen one hundred percent, however, “control will be exercised with a willing Armed Force and with citizen security agencies.

Merchandise passage

The tachirense governor expressed that from the opening the passage of merchandise and products will be where the authorities empower it with the payment of taxes and supervised by customs with the respective procedures.

“As it always was for a hundred years here on this border (…) what happens is that we get used to irregularity,” he estimated.

According to the actions that are already scheduled between the countries for this Monday, four Colombian and three Venezuelan companies will start the commercial exchange suspended from February 23, 2019, which are mentioned below:

By Colombia: