Six individuals arrested in the early hours of Saturday, when they were caught stealing electrical material near the San Antonio del Táchira electrical substation, will be charged with the crimes of terrorism, damage to the facilities of the National Electric System (SEN), illicit trafficking of strategic material and criminal association.
This was stated in his X account by Attorney General Tarek William Saab, indicating that the citizens were identified as Gustovo Arturo Ortiz, Torres Yordin, Steven Sanchez Rey, Jhonatan Jesus Guerrero Moreno, Yordin Jose Clavijo Ramirez, Jhon Freddy Navarro Mora and Luis Añez.
Saab said that the attack on the aforementioned power station could have criminally caused “the total disruption of the electrical service in the entire Andean region of our country.”
The 33rd Táchira Prosecutor’s Office and the 99th National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office were designated for the investigations.
Terrorist attack attempt at electrical substation in Táchira neutralized
It is worth noting that the governor of Táchira state reported earlier that through popular intelligence they neutralized the attempted terrorist attack against the electrical substation in the border municipality of Pedro María Ureña in Táchira, which would cause electrical chaos in the country.
“I am denouncing before the international community, especially the observers who have come from more than 90 countries for the presidential elections on July 28, the attempted terrorist act against the peace of Venezuela and especially against the National Electric System,” Bernal emphasized.
He explained that at around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 27, six individuals were caught red-handed, two of them Colombian paramilitaries and the rest Venezuelans, with a series of mobile phones that, following rigorous investigations, are providing reliable details and data on who is behind the attempted attack.
The individuals were traveling in two vehicles and were in possession of a series of materials with which they intended to dismantle the Substation. “At this moment, the prosecutor’s office is processing strategic information contained in those cell phones and links important sectors of the Venezuelan fascist opposition to paramilitaries. What caught the most attention was three cylinders of industrial oxygen, known as oxycutting. Each of them is equivalent to 5 kilos of TNT, because they intended to blow up the transformers,” said the governor.
Bernal was accompanied by the Minister of Electric Energy Jorge Eliezer Márquez, who thanked the People’s Power and the FANB for having thwarted this attempted terrorist attack on one of the electrical installations in the state of Táchira.
“They intended to cause very serious damage, not only to Táchira, but to the west of the country, because it would generate a chain effect, affecting the San Agatón and La Vueltosa hydroelectric plants that generate energy, causing the states of Zulia, Mérida, Trujillo, and Barinas to be left without electricity,” he said.
The attacks would be against the transformers
The president of Corpoelec, engineer José Luís Betancourt, explained that an attack on the Ureña 1 and 2 substations, interconnected with each other, would cause significant damage to the electrical system in Táchira, directly affecting the San Cristóbal and San Antonio substations. The attacks were directed towards the power transformers.
“This means that the border area and a large part of San Cristóbal were initially going to be affected for more than a week. On the other hand, at the time of the attempted attack, there was going to be a domino effect at a national level, because the entire system is interconnected, so much so that the effects would have reached the Yaracuy substation, because protection systems are activated that cause direct auto-disconnections of the main lines in the country’s trunk line to self-protect the entire National Electric System.”
Venezuela has 950 electrical substations and is currently generating 15 thousand megawatts that guarantee electrical service throughout the country. All infrastructures of strategic interest in the state are protected.
With information from Aura Torrealba and Omar Pernía, correspondent for the state of Táchira.
