Venezuela’s most mur­der­ous fed­er­al state, Delta Amacuro, the area linked with ma­jor drug traf­fick­ing, a pro­lif­er­a­tion of gangs and oth­er il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, is al­so one of that coun­try’s clos­est points to T&T.

This fact is caus­ing ma­jor con­cern as re­cent in­tel­li­gence re­ports in­di­cate the pres­ence of no­to­ri­ous Venezue­lan gang Evande in this coun­try. Their mem­bers have re­port­ed­ly formed al­liances with lo­cal gangs and are fin­gered in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties here which have con­tributed to s spike in homi­cides over the last few weeks.

Delta Amacuro, which is at least four times the size of Trinidad, has de­vel­oped in­to a ma­jor crim­i­nal un­der­world lo­ca­tion and there is ev­i­dence that its crime boss­es are us­ing T&T as a drug traf­fick­ing tran­ship­ment point. That rev­e­la­tion was made in a pa­per pre­pared by Je­sus Manuel Ares Mu­juica for his Mas­ter’s in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the In­sti­tut Barcelona d’Es­tud­is In­ter­na­cionals in 2015, The dra­mat­ic in­crease of vi­o­lent crime in Venezuela since 1999: The re­la­tion­ship be­tween homi­cide and the coun­try’s new role in drug traf­fick­ing.

A US De­part­ment of State Diplo­mat­ic Se­cu­ri­ty Re­port in 2018 al­so out­lined the crim­i­nal threats Venezuela has faced with its eco­nom­ic col­lapse and grow­ing ten­sions be­tween the Nicholas Maduro regime and Juan Guia­do, who de­clared him­self the coun­try’s in­ter­im pres­i­dent.

The 2018 US re­port stat­ed cites in­for­ma­tion from the Venezue­lan NGO Ob­ser­va­to­ry of Vi­o­lence (OVV) which de­scribed the coun­try is the sec­ond most mur­der­ous na­tion af­ter El Sal­vador. The OVV has tracked vi­o­lence us­ing po­lice sources and me­dia re­port­ing. It states that in 2017 Venezuela had more than 26,616 homi­cides at a rate of 89 per 100,000 in­hab­i­tants.

This up­surge in vi­o­lent crimes is dri­ven by the drug trade and crim­i­nal gangs. The US re­port states that a “lack of in­ter­na­tion­al coun­ternar­cotics co­op­er­a­tion in Venezuela and a shift in re­gion­al traf­fick­ing pat­terns has made Venezuela one of the biggest drug-tran­sit coun­tries in the re­gion.”

And that’s where the find­ings on Delta Amacuro come in based on in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by the OVV and quot­ed in the pa­per pre­pared by Mu­ji­ca.

Da­ta ob­tained through the OVV shows that the Delta Amacuro had one of Venezuela’s high­est homi­cide rates by 2012.

“It is one of the least pop­u­lat­ed fed­er­al en­ti­ties in Venezuela, hold­ing the po­si­tion 23 out of 25 states by pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty in 2011. It has a pop­u­la­tion of 167,676 in­hab­i­tants com­pared to Mi­ran­da with 2,676,165 in­hab­i­tants.”

There are high flows of il­lic­it drugs through its ports and sta­tis­tics show that it had the high­est in­crease in homi­cides be­tween 1995 and 2012—an alarm­ing 1400 per cent.

Pri­or to that, Delta Amacuro had one of the coun­try’s low­est homi­cide rates.

The state of Su­cre and its city Guiria, which is al­so very close to T&T, al­so has a high homi­cide rate with an in­crease of 1100 per cent from 1995-2012.

In his re­port, Mu­ji­ca quot­ed from a pre­sen­ta­tion by Deb­o­rah Yashar, Pro­fes­sor of Pol­i­tics and In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs at Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, who said vi­o­lence is high­er in port cities and ar­eas through which drugs are mov­ing.

Mu­ji­ca wrote: “The state has four main rivers: the Orinoco, Amacuro, Bari­ma, and Grande. It is al­so part of the bor­der with Guyana, and the mouths of the rivers fin­ish in the At­lantic Ocean. This is an im­por­tant door for traf­fick­ing to Trinidad, To­ba­go, and Eu­rope.”

His re­search al­so yield­ed from the El Na­cional dai­ly news­pa­per in Venezuela that “Delta Amacuro is now one of the main ports in the coun­try for clan­des­tine ships that nav­i­gate through­out the 3,622 branch­es of the rivers lo­cat­ed in the state.”

Fur­ther, the state’s “role in the co­caine traf­fick­ing route has in­creased due to its ge­og­ra­phy, not on­ly be­cause of the num­ber of rivers . . . but al­so be­cause it is a bor­der state with Guyana and the clos­est port from Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Some of the drug car­tels that op­er­ate in Venezuela, ac­cord­ing to In­sight Crime, in­clude na­tion­al car­tels and Colom­bian armed forces, in­clud­ing the ELN (Ejerci­to De Lib­era­cion Na­cional) Colom­bian gueril­las who have had a pres­ence in Venezuela since 2000. This car­tel us­es Apure, an­oth­er Venezue­lan state, to con­duct their il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties.

The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces of Colom­bia (FARC) has al­so been op­er­at­ing in Venezuela and the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty forces have been ac­cused of help­ing FARC in co­caine traf­fick­ing.

A fair­ly new crim­i­nal group, Ban­das Crim­i­nales Emer­gentes (BACRIM), is al­so op­er­at­ing in Venezuela, as well as Aguilas Ne­gras and Los Ras­tro­jos, ac­cord­ing to In­sight Crime.