Former Venezuelan Official Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios Arrested Again In Spain In Connection With Narco-Terrorism, Firearms, And Drug-Trafficking Charges

 

Carvajal Barrios Allegedly Participated in Large-Scale Drug-Trafficking Activities as a Venezuelan Government Official, Including a 5.6-Ton Cocaine Shipment

 Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Wendy Woolcock, the Special Agent in Charge of the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), today announced that former Venezuelan official Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a/k/a “El Pollo,” was arrested yesterday in Madrid, Spain, based on an Indictment filed in the Southern District of New York.  The Indictment charges Carvajal Barrios with participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy and a conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, including a 5.6-ton shipment of cocaine transported from Venezuela to Mexico in April 2006, along with related firearms offenses.[1]  CARVAJAL BARRIOS was originally arrested in connection with these charges in April 2019, and later that year the Spanish National Court approved CARVAJAL BARRIOS’s extradition to the United States. CARVAJAL BARRIOS has since remained a fugitive pending extradition until his arrest yesterday.

Carvajal Barrios, 61, a Venezuelan national residing in Spain, among other places, is charged with: (1) participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life; (2) conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, which carries a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life; (3) using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and possessing machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine importation conspiracies, which carries a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life; and (4) conspiring to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices during and in relation to, and to possess machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of, the narco-terrorism and cocaine importation conspiracies, which carries a maximum sentence of life.  The potential mandatory minimum and maximum sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Ms. Strauss praised the outstanding efforts of the DEA’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit and Miami Field Division, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and the Spanish National Police’s Fugitive Unit.

[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Indictment and the description of the Indictment set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.