Narcosobrinos affair
The Narcosobrinos affair (Spanish for drug-nephews) is the situation of events that surrounded two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores who were arrested for narcotics trafficking. The nephews, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, were arrested on 10 November 2015 by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after attempting to transport 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. A year later on 18 November 2016, the two nephews were found guilty, with the cash allegedly destined to "help their family stay in power". On 14 December 2017, the two were sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment. In October 2022 Campos and Flores were released and sent to Venezuela as a prisoner swap reached with United States in exchange of five Venezuelan-American directors of the oil refinery corporation CITGO (part of the Citgo Six) imprisoned in Venezuela. Etymology The word Narcosobrinos is the word narco, meaning "drug dealer", followed by sobrinos, which translates to "nephews". Its translation could therefore be "drug dealer nephews". The term derived from the media which focused on the relation of drug dealing charges to President Maduro's nephews. Background According to Jackson Diehl, Deputy Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post, the Bolivarian government of Venezuela shelters "one of the world's biggest drug cartels". There have been allegations of former president Hugo Chávez being involved with drug trafficking. In May 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported from United States officials that drug trafficking in Venezuela increased significantly with Colombian drug traffickers moving from Colombia to Venezuela due to pressure from law enforcement. One United States Department of Justice official described the higher ranks of the Venezuelan government and military as "a criminal organization", with high ranking Venezuelan officials being accused of drug trafficking. Those involved with investigations stated that Venezuelan government defectors and former traffickers had given information to investigators and that details of those involved in government drug trafficking were increasing. Anti-drug authorities have also accused some Venezuelan officials of working with Mexican drug cartels. At a presentation at the XXXII International Conference on Drugs in 2015, commander of the United States Southern Command General John Kelly stated that though relations with other Latin American nations countering drug trafficking has been good, Venezuela was not as cooperative and that "there's a lot of cocaine leaving Venezuela to the world market". General Kelly also stated that almost all shipments of cocaine using aircraft comes out of Venezuela and that since 2013 to early-2014, the route of drug trafficking aircraft has changed from heading to Central America to primarily traveling through Caribbean islands. The Narcosobrinos incident happened at a time when multiple high-ranking members of the Venezuelan government were being investigated for their involvement of drug trafficking, including Walter Jacobo Gavidia, Cilia Flores' son who is a Caracas judge, former National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, and Governor of Aragua State Tarek El Aissami. Series of events Preparation and DEA monitoring Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas