The Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, unveiled a new plan aimed at the overthrow of President Nicolás Maduro, for which they invested 20 million euros, according to testimonies.
The minister pointed out the shrimp businessman José Enrique Rincón as the leader of the operation called No to Christmas, which consisted of attacking basic services such as water and electricity. Rincón has an empire of 90 companies, whose presidents were arrested, Cabello revealed.
Once the press conference was over, the minister said that there were approximately 100 detainees, among them mostly businessmen.
“A new conspiracy, a new operation against the country of destabilization that has its origin in Zulia,” Cabello said during the press conference he offered yesterday from the Ministry of the Interior.
Rincón held meetings for these plans in restaurants he owned with the participation of soldiers, one of whom is detained.
The plan included control of the Judiciary to grant benefits to negative prison leaders, who would in turn organize cells with inmates to whom they would provide weapons in order to perpetrate attacks on military facilities and public services.
“They already had a network of three more states (…) we are acting,” said Cabello, who specified that around these officials is the leadership of the Primero Justicia party.
Cabello said that corruption and conspiracy are mixed here, but in this case they are investigating the latter.
During the investigations, intelligence officials detected the existence of a camp intended for the training of Colombian paramilitaries located on the Zulia-Colombia border and another similar one in Ecuador.
These groups that trained there are linked to the same people who organized the so-called Operation Gideon, which was neutralized on May 3, 2020, the minister added.
In the Zulia-Colombia camp they located organic rifles from the Colombian Army stolen by paramilitaries who trained in those spaces.
Once again the name of Iván Simonovis appears as the person in charge of providing the weapons and explosives for the execution of the plan, Cabello explained. And in this specific case, the weapons would be handled by businessman Rincón.
In this regard, Cabello revealed that they recently investigated several grenades for poor handling, a fact that was hidden by police officials involved in the plan.
Cabello specified that the objective of the plan was to prevent President Nicolás Maduro from taking office, as winner of the elections on July 28. The minister clarified that the operation activated by the group of Zulian businessmen together with officials from the justice system and the military has not yet been completely aborted.
“They have crossed the political line, they are planning acts of violence, but we are not going to allow them,” stressed Cabello, who assured that this plan included the murder of figures of the Bolivarian Revolution “as a trigger.”
Behind the plan is, in addition to Simonovis, María Corina Machado and Juan Pablo Guanipa, among others. “Their source of financing is drug trafficking and they have wanted to take over the state of Amazonas (…) they go there because that is where they are paid, that is where they are contacted,” explained Cabello, who explained that this operation is the continuation of the unveiled last September where they seized 470 weapons and detained Spanish and American mercenaries.
We asked the minister if there is anyone above the top prosecutor of Zulia or the president of the Criminal Judicial Circuit who is instructing them or did they do so on their own initiative. “I’m not going to say anything but there will be signs,” Cabello responded. “Unfortunately I cannot go further than what we have said today, because they are testifying,” he said, alluding to the detained judges and prosecutors from whom a total of $200,000 in cash was seized.
The Pranes Summit
- Minister Cabello said that the recent arrests of judicial operators in Zulia are related to the operation led by businessman José Enrique Rincón. In this sense, he reported that the following are detained: Pedro Velasco (president of the Judicial Circuit of Zulia), Maurelis Vilchez Prieto and Mariol Plaza Hernández (judges), Francisco Javier Urdaneta (5th prosecutor of Zulia) and José Gregorio Rondón Muñoz (senior prosecutor of Zulia).
- Cabello exhibited some of the weapons seized in Zulia during several procedures: 21 rifles (6 Galil of Colombian manufacture, 1 M4, eight AK47 and six M16 of North American manufacture), as well as a grenade launcher with 10 devices, a Glock pistol and a drone.
- The minister revealed that the recent capture in Colombia of an ally of the Aragua Train occurred when a group of 15 criminals enrolled in the violence plans to be carried out in Venezuela before January 10 were about to meet.
