Dickey, Christopher. “How Cuba Helped Make Venezuela a Mafia State.” Daily Beast, June 2, 2019.

InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Seven-part series, May 16, 2018 to May 25, 2018. Full report: InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Report (PDF): 1) “7 Reasons for Describing Venezuela as a ‘Mafia State'”, Mary 16, 2018; 2) “Drug Trafficking Within the Venezuelan Regime: The ‘Cartel of the Suns'”, May 17, 2018; 3) “The Devolution of State Power: The ‘Colectivos'”, May 18, 2018; 4) “The Devolution of State Power: ‘The Pranes’,” May 20, 2018; 5) “Colombia and Venezuela: Criminal Siamese Twins,” May 21, 2018; 6) “Honduras and Venezuela: Coup and Cocaine Air Bridge,” May 23, 2018; 7) “Dominican Republic and Venezuela: Cocaine Across the Caribbean,” May 24, 2018; 8) “Venezuela and El Salvador: Exporting Aid and Corruption,” May 25, 2018.

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North American Continental Appetite for Narcotics
–> Cash –> Central / South America
–> Cartel –> Gangs –> Related Violence
–> Corruption of Authorities
–> General Insecurity
–> Displacement of Population | Northern Mass Migration

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If you’re on the Soviet / post-Soviet flavored Left / Far Left Progressive Movement, the same that might obtain its image of the world from, say, 927+ or Mint Press, at least consider reading Christopher Dickey’s report on the Cuba-Venezuelan connection and the InSight Crime series on narcotics trafficking and the accumulation of wealth by nominally “communist” and “socialist” so-called “leaders” in captive Central and South American states.

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Breaking: Montoya-Galvez, Camilo. “Senators Introduce bill to send $400 million in aid to Venezuela, strengthen sanctions.” CBS News, April 3, 2019.

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In familiar Orwellian fashion, the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left simply ignores the sustained Soviet / post-Soviet investment in the underworld and what it does to societies everywhere it travels.

For decades Venezuela treated its oil reserves — as has Russia — as plunder for The People, which it was, while all the while failing to diversify its internal and trade economies. Who cared? There was money for everything — until oil prices fell.

And then there was nothing.

Or what was left were the sideshows: the selling off of gold reserves; the cocaine trade; sex-related human trafficking; and, nearer to this miserable late date, displacement and the bartering of everything.

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