Minister Diosdado Cabello said on Saturday that more than 80 tons of drugs from drug trafficking have been seized so far this year.
On Sunday, September 15, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Venezuela is among the countries that do not comply with international agreements in the fight against drug trafficking.
Biden, in a memo sent to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, indicated that the presence of a country on this list is not a sanction and is not necessarily a reflection of a particular government’s efforts or the level of cooperation with that nation.
The list is drawn up based on a “combination of geographic, commercial and economic factors that allow drugs or chemical precursors to circulate or be produced, even if a government has implemented strict anti-narcotics control measures.”
Under U.S. law, particularly the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, the president is required to report annually on nations deemed to be drug producers or transit centers.
In addition to Venezuela, the list of countries that the US says are not complying with agreements in the fight against drug trafficking includes Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma (Myanmar), Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama and Peru.
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Bolivia and Venezuela, along with Burma, are the only three countries that are noted as having “manifestly failed over the past 12 months to adhere to their obligations under international anti-drug agreements.”
The administration of Nicolás Maduro has stated on several occasions that there is a constant fight to combat drug trafficking. The Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, stated on Saturday, September 14, that so far in 2024, more than 80 tons of narcotic substances have been seized.
On the 11th, Cabello denied that a plane carrying drugs from Venezuela had been intercepted in Guinea-Bissau and that a helicopter carrying drugs belonging to his country had also been seized in Brazil. He indicated that “there is a false positive on the way, hard, with the issue of drugs.”
He said that the helicopter does not belong to his country and that the Guinea-Bissau plane “was never in Venezuela, never touched Venezuelan soil,” he said. He also said that “drugs are not produced” on Venezuelan soil and that they have seized more than 80 tons of illicit substances.
With information from Swiss Info
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