On September 29, the U.S. Department of State announced a $10 million reward for information “leading to the arrest and/or conviction” of a former senior intelligence official of the Venezuelan regime, as well as $5 million for each of two former Venezuelan officials due to their connection with narcotrafficking.
All three are currently fugitives from justice.
One is Pedro Luis Martín-Olivares, identified as the former head of Venezuela’s Economic Intelligence Services, who was indicted in the Southern District of Florida in 2015 for distribution of a controlled substance, “knowing that such controlled substance would be unlawfully imported into the United States,” the Department of State reported.
Martín-Olivares, for whom a $10 million reward is being offered, is accused of possession and conspiracy to import the substances mentioned in the report.
The Department of State is also offering a reward for information leading to the capture and prosecution of Rodolfo McTurk-Mora and Jesús Alfredo Itriago.
McTurk-Mora, former head of Interpol in Venezuela, was accused in the same Florida judicial district in 2013 of “conspiracy to import cocaine, importation of cocaine into the United States, possession with the intent to distribute cocaine, and corrupting and impeding an official.”
Meanwhile, Itriago, who served as head of Venezuela’s Antinarcotics Division at the Scientific, Penal, and Criminal Investigations Corps, was accused in Florida, in January 2013, of “conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance […], knowing that such controlled substance would be unlawfully imported into the United States.”
Itriago’s accusation further alleges that the violation “involved five kilograms or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine.”
The announcement comes under the Department of State’s Narcotics Rewards Program.
In March 2020, the U.S. government filed charges against Nicolás Maduro for alleged connections to narcotrafficking, and offered a $15 million reward for his capture.
Other Maduro regime leaders that the United States is seeking are Diosdado Cabello, president of the regime’s illegitimate National Constituent Assembly; Tareck El Aissami, nominal vice president of Economy; and Hugo Carvajal, former director of the Venezuelan Army’s counterintelligence services.