Trans-National Criminal Organization Series - Part 3

Photo by Tengyart / Unsplash

It is a cool, slightly windy evening, and the now gutted Challenger 600's twin jet engines are humming along normally. Despite some of the normal turbulence the plane encounters, this trip has been somewhat more peaceful than the others the pilots have taken. Despite the somewhat calm transit, the pilots are more nervous flying now than they ever have been before. You see, these pilots, despite having gotten their flight training in the United States and having a ton of flight hours behind them are about to attempt a feat that they have only read about, and in an aircraft both barely have any experience in. It is close to 0200 hours and their aircraft is approaching Venezuelan airspace. As the Challenger 600 makes its way over the Natural Catatumbo National Park in Colombia, the pilots turn off their transponder and begin their approach near Venezuela's Sierra de Perija National Park.

A satellite phone given to the pilot before take off comes to life. As the pilot answers, he hears a voice on the other side asking for "the codes." The co-pilot thinks to himself that they have surely been spotted by some sort of Venezuelan military. The pilot grabs a small piece of paper written with a sequence of numbers and letters, and reads them off to the voice on the other end of the phone. The silence after he completes his sentence is deafening, even over the engine's loud hum. A few seconds pass by and the voice returns on the satellite phone, giving the pilot some exact coordinates and some basic instructions to follow. Two sighs of relief exhale from the pilots' lungs, and they turn the aircraft slightly towards the new navigation point. The $175,000.00 bribe their counterpart in Mexico had ensured them was wired, had really paid off.

The aircraft approaches the navigation point and begins a descent into the area the voice had told them about on the phone. The Venezuelan jungle here is somewhat thick and hardly inhabited, allowing for few visual landmarks when dark. However, during their descent both pilots notice a lit landmark on the ground. That must be it, the pilot thinks to himself. As the plane circles the landmark, more lights become visible, which are now clearly showing a makeshift landing strip in the middle of this national park. The aircraft finishes its route around the area, begins the slow treacherous descent over the canopy of the jungle and lines itself up with the lights. The pilots plop the Challenger 600 down hard on a shoddily paved, dirt landing strip, passing flaming barrels and piles of military issued glow sticks on the ground. The jet quakes and shakes hard as its brakes squeal against its wheels, which were not retrofitted for this venture.

Finally, the plane had arrived at its destination and almost as quickly as it was parked, there was a contingent of greeters welcoming them. The planes engines were barely cycling down as the cabin doors were opened. As the pilots got out of the plane to stretch their legs, about 15 men, half of which were armed with AK-47's and AR-15's and dressed in what appeared to be old military uniforms began helping each other load up bales of cocaine into the jets cabin. Two men bring around a truck filled with jet fuel and a fuel hose which they began to use to fill up the planes gas tank. The pilots over hear some of the men discussing how hard it was to get this much cocaine up the river, and that they are finally glad to see it gone. The cabin which had already been stripped and gutted, making the inner hold look like an empty metal cylinder with windows was filling up.

Thirty minutes have passed, and the pilots are back in the cockpit, strapped in to their seats. Beads of sweat are running down both of their faces as the co-pilot's normally steady, yet now shaking hand initiates the power on procedures for a now heavy passenger jet. The doors are closed and the pilots maneuver the aircraft nose cone back the way it had come from. A man on the ground waves up to the pilot giving a thumbs up, signaling that the ground around the aircraft was free of debris and men. The pilots push down on the throttle and start the take off procedure. The plane feels the same as it did while landing, rough and agonizing, except this time it feels as if the plane is having a harder time getting up than they did in Mexico. The aircraft engines hum louder now, as they push the aircraft up and over the canopy and safely out of the jungle. Roughly 35 minutes had passed from when the pilots had landed the Challenger, before they were in the air again.

However, their trip is not done. These pilots had been paid for two jungle landings.  Half of their payment had been given to them in Mexico, and the other half was awaiting them when they arrived back. Approximately three hours later, both pilots start the same procedure over again, this time on their approach into the Peten jungle area in the middle of northern Guatemala. The only difference with this portion of the trip was that there was no phone call from the satellite phone. The pilots already had their coordinates for landing given to them in advance, instilling in their minds that perhaps Guatemala would be safer and easier to deal with than the Venezuelans.

The pilots land the jet near yet another uninhabited area, this time in the Guatemalan jungle near the border of Mexico. More sighs of relief are shared and the pilots begin their exit from the aircraft. Just like a few hours earlier in Venezuela, the hatch opens up and they are greeted by approximately 15 men, half of which are armed. The men aid the pilots out of the aircraft and out on to the hidden dirt airstrip. The pilots offer to help unload the cocaine from the jet, however two men approach them and take them aside saying that their help is no longer needed, and that a truck is waiting to take them back into Mexico. Visibly confused and a bit shaken, the pilots agree and follow an AK-47 laden man to a truck at the back of the airstrip. As they walk to the truck, the man slips behind them, raises his AK-47 and fires, executing both pilots, ending their exhilarating adventure and life. Their executioner, a Mexican man sent by the drug cartel in Mexico who had hired them, piles their bodies back into the cockpit, and once given the okay from the other armed men, Guatemalans, that the cocaine had successfully been taken off the aircraft and separated by weight onto various trucks whose destinations and recipients were already pre-determined, begins the process of setting the jet on fire. All who were present, vacated the area and drove back into Mexico, leaving nothing but a burning, hollowed out jet and two poor dead pilots who were coaxed into making some great money for a six to eight hour trip.

This story painted above sounds like a plot one would watch in an action movie about drug cartels. Although a work of fiction, the story above is based on, and represents many true stories that have taken place within the dark underworld of operating in a trans-national criminal organization (TCO). An analysis of this story paints an even more interesting picture of what it is like to be involved in this world. What is unique here is that the pilots came into contact with two different TCO's. For the sake of this part of the series we will focus on the TCO they encountered in Venezuela.

The Cartel of the Suns is a TCO based out of Venezuela and could very well be who the pilots encountered during their trip into Venezuela. Their hierarchy consists of high ranking military officials, high ranking members of Venezuela's intelligence apparatus and high ranking politicians such as Tareck El Aissami and Nicolas Maduro. This cartel formulated sometime in the early to mid 1990's when it was rumored high ranking members of Venezuela's National Guard, two generals to be precise, were facilitating drug trafficking. The name comes from the fact that they generals wore sun emblems on their military uniforms which indicated their rank. Over time the allegations appeared true. However, despite the outcry at the time that portions of Venezuela's military were involved in drug trafficking, the cartel appeared to grow more powerful. What makes this one particularly interesting is that as time has progressed, this TCO has spread its tendrils all across the government of Venezuela. Members of Venezuela's military, intelligence, and political communities probably do not have structured meetings or answer quite directly to one specific leader as they would with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. However, the way this organization is structured is more loose. Members of this organization do not come out and publicize their membership, because their is no generic form of membership. The name is a catch all for the entirety of the corrupt system in Venezuela. The politicians facilitate corruption amongst themselves, and created a system that encourages nepotism and "looking the other way." They directly fund terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, sell passports to criminals and terrorists for the right price, run mining operations that are solely established to smuggle precious metals, such as gold, out of the country and into other countries so profits from their sale can be laundered back into their own pockets. Officials apart of this TCO also facilitate complex fuel price gouging and shady business practices designed to benefit only themselves, leaving the population grasping at resources. The military looks the other way upon request and is rewarded handsomely for doing so. All the while, government officials act as if they are fighting the good fight and doing their part to tackle crime. Make no doubt about it, what you see in the media coming out of Venezuela where the government is "doing good work" is simply for show.  After all, large drug trafficking organizations already take into account the huge losses they will undergo and write it off as such. Latin and South American drug trafficking organizations love utilizing Venezuela due to how easy it is to bribe their way in, in order to load up large amounts of bulk cocaine from countries like Colombia and Ecuador and then fly it out.

When much of the upper government and military is involved, it makes it easy for the government to look like they are doing their part. As long as the government officials can look good while getting a large payday simultaneously, nothing much will change in Venezuela, I am afraid. To elaborate on this, let us say those pilots we read about above failed to provide the correct codes to the person on the satellite phone, what likely would have happened is that the Venezuelan's would have scrambled fighter jets to intercept and simply shoot down the Challenger 600. Once an "investigation" is done by the very military members who were about to accept the bribe, news articles would have been published showing that the Venezuelan military shot down a narco-jet and is doing a great job at combating drug smuggling in cartel associated aircraft. There are numerous articles about such instances on the internet.

All of this, along with a lack of oversight from countries with robust law enforcement, intelligence, and military apparatus; poor choices of strategic allies, and a form of Chavist Socialism in Venezuela that perpetuates, and facilitates corruption among the ruling class indicates that the situation in Venezuela is dire. An entire series or book could be written on the Cartel of the Suns and its members and history. Its hierarchical structure will shock you. So, I will once again implore you to do some research on this subject. Many outlets have spoken about this. However, it seems that mainstream media and global world players are content in looking the other way, while Venezuelan officials continue to get away with robbing their own country blind while using a TCO to do the robbing.

Part three culminates the end of our initial Trans-National Criminal Organization Series. Inseeker hopes you enjoyed reading, learning and thinking critically about what was discussed. A definition, a theory of structure, and a tale based on true events have been analyzed. Of course, this does not encompass even a fraction of the complexity of the TCO topic. What we wanted to get across is something that will spark interest and further research among readers of this series and we hope we accomplished that at least to some extent. Be on the lookout for more deep dives into specific groups as the newsletter progresses. Thank you for reading.