US To Sanction Venezuelan VP For Being “Drug Kingpin” As Socialist Utopia Resorts To Eating Flamingoes
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 13, 2017
After years of investigations over alleged drug-trafficking and money-laundering, Venezuela’s vice-president Tareck El Aissami faces sanctions by US authorities as a “specially designated national.” El Aissami would be the highest-ranking Venezuelan official hit by U.S. sanctions, and we are sure will warrant a furious response from President Maduro who has already accused US of ‘economic war’ numerous times… and being responsible for forcing his people to resort to eating flamingoes now.
The sanctions mark an extraordinary step against the second-in-command of a foreign government and are sure to lead to a further deterioration in U.S. relations with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who appointed El Aissami as vice president on Jan. 4 amid a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis. El Aissami, the son of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants, has long been one of Venezuela’s most controversial and feared politicians. In just over a decade, the 42-year-old climbed government ranks from a student leader in rural Venezuela, to interior minister, to his previous post as the governor of Aragua state.
After being tapped by Maduro to lead a “commando unit” against alleged coup plotters and officials suspected of treason, Bloomberg reports, his ascent prompted a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers to call last week for further measures against Maduro’s government. In a Feb. 8 letter to President Donald Trump, 34 members of Congress including Senators Ted Cruz and Robert Menendez cited El Aissami’s appointment and urged the U.S. to “take immediate action to sanction regime officials.”
Amid hyperinflationary chaos, El Aissami, nicknamed “the narco of Aragua” by Venezuela’s beleaguered opposition, has thrived. As Bloomberg details, critics allege he has used his vast political network to help turn the country into an international hub for drugs. The State Department, in its 2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, described the Caribbean nation as a “major cocaine transit country,” citing “endemic corruption throughout commerce and government, including law enforcement.”
The Rest…HERE
