By Jeremy Morgan
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

CARACAS – Interior Minister Tareck El Assaimi announced that Venezuela would deport a United States citizen back to his own country, where he was wanted on drugs charges.

Julio Méndez, 38, had been caught in Valencia, the capital of Carabobo state, last week and had been on the Wanted list in the United States since 2007, the minister said, and would be sent back on Thursday.

The nature of the charges wasn’t disclosed, nor how long Méndez had been in Venezuela and what status he may have held on entering the country and why he was here.

El Assaimi went to some length to emphasize that this was just the latest case in which the government had demonstrated its “decided willingness” to play its part in the international battle against drugs.

Officials in Washington have long harbored doubts about Venezuela’s commitment to the war against drugs, a suspicion Caracas considers completely unjustified by its record.

El Assaimi said that this year so far, 10 presumed drugs chiefs had been arrested in Venezuela. He pointed out that a meeting of anti-drugs chiefs was taking place at that very moment at the vacation resort of Nueva Esparta.

A report at the United States Congress earlier this year which suggested there was a “narco-state” in Venezuela caused particular offence. The terminology of the report implied that the government or senior officials were involved in the illegal drugs trade.

The scientific and investigative police, CICPC, meanwhile called in reporters to announce that it had “dismantled” a band that ran a string of “mules” carrying drugs from South America to the coast of Africa.

Mules often ingest drugs in condoms, carrying the highly personal cargo in flight and through controls in their alimentary canals before vacating them after arriving at the point of evuacation.

The risks attached to doing this are not inconsiderable. There have been several cases of condoms bursting while inside the carrier, sending them quickly to their doom in a blizzard of intoxication.

CICPC Director General Wilmer Flores Trosel said that the drugs ring had been uncovered during a raid Tuesday morning in Propatria, a rough and poor barrier at the end of the Metro subway line in north-west Caracas.

There, officers had found an illegal drugs laboratory which he said had been used to process cocaine, the CICPC chief said. The premises had also been used to prepare the human mules for their journeys, he added.

Two men had been detained, one of Dominican nationality and the other a Venezuela, Flores Trosel continued. CICPC had identified the other members of the gang as well as the mules, who were abroad. People tend to take this risk once only, if they can, for a suitable stash of cash at the other end.