Venezuela seizes 2 tons of cocaine hidden at port

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Venezuela seizes 2 tons of cocaine hidden at port
The Associated Press
Saturday, March 13, 2010; 7:05 PM

CARACAS -- A Venezuelan police official says security forces have seized two tons of cocaine that was intended to be smuggled to the Netherlands.

Federal Police Chief Wilmer Flores Trosel says the drugs were hidden in two bulldozers at a port in the central state of Carabobo.

An Information Ministry statement released Saturday quotes Trosel as saying the bulldozers sat in the port for about five months because they didn't have the required export documents.

Because of its proximity to cocaine-producing gangs in Colombia, Venezuela has become one of the most important routes for smuggling drugs to the United States and Europe.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/13/AR2010031302019.html

[EFerrari]

1. Oh, great. Now Hugo Chavez is stealing perfectly good cocaine, too!

The DEA must be pissed!

lol

[LakeSamish706]

2. Lol.. Now thats funny... Hugo should be locked up for life for this. This is all his fault

that our dope got stolen.

[naaman fletcher]

27. One place where I would like to see Chavez lead central and south america..

Is to tell the U.S. to piss off on the WOD. The U.S. dangles cash over the heads of C.A. and S.A. leaders to get them to fight the drug war. The result is gangs, violence, bribery, etc.

All of central and south american should tell the U.S. to piss off, they are not fighting the U.S.'s war anymore.

[krispos42]

3. In related news, Bush cancels planned vacation to the Low Countries.

Close friends handlers report he's inconsolable.

[EFerrari]

4. To be a little serious, this is one of the main reasons the ports were nationaized.

And it looks like it was a good idea. :thumbsup:

[bitchkitty]

5. Wow - 2 tons?

I'll bet the person who screwed up on the export documents is no longer living.

[Hulk]

12. 4,000 pounds?? Good Lord!!

I've never dealth with that crap..but that's enough cocaine to keep the Netherlands high a long, long time, no?

[unc70]

29. Were waiting for the 2 million baggies.

Likely to be cut with something before getting down to the gram, so probably eventually twice that many baggies.

[JackRiddler]

6. Commies interfering with the free market, terrible.

[DissedByBush]

7. Somebody forgot to pay the proper bribe

One to get the export documents and two to have the police look the other way on the drugs.

Look like they at least remembered the bribe to get it over the border.

Chavez is a FARC sympathizer, and his government is notoriously corrupt.

[Chulanowa]

8. Notorious, by the standards of the same people who told us Bush was amazing

[DissedByBush]

13. No matter how Bush was

Bribes are not endemic to this country.

In Venezuela and many other South American countries you can pretty much get what you want with bribes.

It is often even the only way to get what you're legally entitled to in the first place.

If you get put in jail in Mexico for a minor infraction, don't rely on the Mexican justice system. You could rot in prison.

Better to hire a local expert who knows who to bribe to get you out quickly.

[EFerrari]

16. What on Earth are you taking about, bribes are not endemic in this country?

How do you think our elections are run?

How do you think defense contracts are made?

How do you get building permits "expedited" in most oounties?

[ronnie624]

17. But that's different.

Venezuela doesn't enjoy global political, economic and military hegemony, so they don't get to say which bribes are legitimate and which ones are not. Might makes right.

[DissedByBush]

18. Bribery happens

But it's not endemic.

For the most part you can get through life without having to bribe anyone even if you are a businessman.

If you're a foreigner wanting to do business there (don't know why you would these days, but let's say), you need bribes to get in.

Down there bribes are how things are done.

Chavez has no real incentive to clean up.

That's millions of dollars pumped into the workers in his government keeping them happy.

Plus with such endemic corruption it's easy to single out opponents and have them prosecuted.

Keep defending your wannabe dictator.

Just ask Raul Baduel what happens to even long-time Chavez supporters who question the current path to authoritarianism.

[Threedifferentones]

30. What country do you live in?

Bribery is not endemic in the USA?

One way or another, rich people seem to have a much easier time defending criminal cases than poor people here. One way or another, rich people are a lot more effective at "lobbying" our leaders than we are.

If our government doesn't work on paying people off, then why the fuck is it controlled by the small percent of people who are rich, and not the big percentage who are poor?

The American system is accurately described as "pay to play." Of course our forms of bribery are not called such in courts of law, they are not illegal! And, if you apply our legal system to Venezuela's, we could say they are committing the serious crime of bribery in the open all the time. Clearly, a nation not to be trusted! Eh?

But instead of debating semantics, as we have now begun to, let's discuss a little truth. I do not think the truth lies in the proper definition of bribery.

Chavez isn't some sort of saint like many here make him out to be. He seems as selfish to me as any typical ruler: he, his family and his friends are all ludicrously rich, and his grip on power keeps getting tighter and tighter.

But, never, ever forget that our leaders are at least as bad. One of our worst crimes is, over the course of many decades, using violence and espionage to ensure that the dictators of these poor countries keep the prices of goods down oppressing their workers, and that they send the raw materials thus produced to Americans and our partners.

There have been so many awful leaders that our government has said nothing about because they were benefiting Americans financially, along with themselves, at a horrifying human cost to their own population. There have even been some, like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, that we have supported for a while, and then condemned later, even though they were vicious the whole time. You gotta ask yourself why, and the answer is pretty fucking obvious, I'd say another poster already said half of it:

1. Follow the money.

2. Might makes right, and winners write history.

[Peace Patriot]

21. "Bribes are not endemic to this country." LOL!

:rofl:

Lord amighty, are you naive!

[DissedByBush]

23. So I'm a foreign business

I want to start selling in America.

Do I need bribes to do it?

No.

Sure I might want to grease the wheels to make it easier.

But if I have everything in order and what I'm doing isn't prohibited, I can use normal channels to conduct my business.

Down there you will need bribes somewhere along the way to make it happen.

Here we have a few bad cops on the payroll of the cartels. Down there the cartels own entire divisions of the police and judiciary and can operate openly and freely in areas of their countries.

That's the kind of corruption we're talking about, not the sporadic stuff that happens around here.

[EFerrari]

25. Oh, please. My uncle in El Salvador had to launder every cent

during the war out of Miami.

And he did, for all those years.

It's not "sporadic" in the least. No, you can't offer a cop a bribe to back off your speeding ticket. You have to go up the food chain. The effect is the same.

[Chulanowa]

26. You're joking, right?

And you want to talk about justice systems? Try being black, native, or latino in America, then come back to me with your chest-thumping pride in the American legal system.

[EFerrari]

10. LOL. The opposition has been trying to pin corruption on him for a decade

and they have bupkiss.

[DissedByBush]

14. So he's not a FARC sympathizer? n/t

[EFerrari]

15. You just changed the subject.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. And they did it without the help of the DEA and 10,000 US troops.

Is that even possible?

[EFerrari]

11. Possible? I'd say, necessary. n/t

[Wilms]

19. Brilliant. n/t

[greiner3]

20. That's just cover for the 20 tons that did make it out.

[Peace Patriot]

22. So much for the U.S. ***BULLSHIT*** that countries that have expelled the corrupt, murderous,

failed U.S. "war on drugs" are not interdicting dangerous drugs and shutting down cocaine crime networks!

And this is very likely one of the major reasons that countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--which have kicked the DEA and the U.S. military out--are on the U.S. and corpo-fascist 'news' monopoly hit list: They are interfering with a Bush Cartel/CIA revenue stream! They also have lots of oil--Venezuela (lots and lots--twice that of Saudi Arabia) and Ecuador--and gas, oil and lithium, Bolivia. And honest, clean elections, resulting in profits from the oil, gas, lithium and other resources being used to benefit the people who live there--a major crime from Washington's point of view. Add this to the Bolivarians' crime of actually seizing big illicit drug caches and shutting down drug lords--and, in Bolivia's case, legalizing the innocent coca leaf, an Indigenous medicine--and you have the three most hated governments inside "the Beltway," bar none.

Democracy! Social justice! Clean elections! Honest, effective government! Ye gods!

[wayne fontes]

24. Wouldn't that be the Obama Cartel/CIA revenue stream?

Bush was replaced over a year ago I think. I haven't looked it up but I'm pretty sure he's gone.

[Peace Patriot]

28. The Bush Cartel is never gone. nt

[slackmaster]

31. One ton of cocaine gets checked into the police vault as evidence

500 pounds of cocaine is presented at trial...