Pilot of 'Cocaine One' DC 9 is Re- Re- Re-Arrested

"His story ended, not with a bang, but a Twitter."

By Daniel Hopsicker, Mad Cow News

One of the greatest escapes since the Great Houdini was locked in handcuffs and leg-irons, nailed inside a crate, and lowered to the bottom of New York’s East River reached its conclusion two weeks ago, when a drug pilot who has escaped from custody in three different countries and eluded an international manhunt was arrested in a van with 70 kilos of cocaine in a parking lot at the Radisson Hotel in Caracas, Venezuela.

Carmelo Vasquez-Guerra, the pilot on two of the most famous and controversial drug flights of the past decade, was taken into custody by Venezuelan police without incident, along with two other men, ending an incredible five-year long saga featuring repeated arrest, but little detention.

During that time Vasquez-Guerra was arrested, and then inexplicably released from custody, in not one...not two... but in three different countries, located on two separate continents.  His astounding ability to slither out of serious trouble raises disturbing questions about who's winning—and losing—the war on drugs.

Carmelo Vasquez-Guerra—in global drug trafficking—is The Great Houdini II.

Even so, when his time ran out, and his run from the law finally ended, he went out, not with a bang…

But a Twitter.

A Tweet from the Minister of Funny Walks

"Stopped in Caracas by the CICPC: Carmelo Guerra Vásquez," twitted Tarek El Aissami, Venezuela’s Minister for the Interior and Justice. "Wanted by Interpol with a Red Notice for drug trafficking."

Fans of El Aissami on Twitter presumably know the significance of an Interpol “Red Notice.”
But even the uninitiated can make a good guess.

Carmelo Vásquez-Guerra, the most notorious drug pilot in the world, was in custody. It was an important event in a crucial struggle, because, when he talks, what he has to say will be of crucial importance in a larger arena.

Two combatants are locked in a death match: the American Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA... and a man whose red beret has prompted more heartburn in the U.S. than anyone since Che Guevara.

Hugo Chavez is either Venezuela’s “President,” or Venezuela’s “strongman,” depending on your—or your native country’s—point of view.  He was democratically elected, but is highly controversial, even feared, in his own country, and by large segments of his own people.

The 'kingpin of kingpins' in a global jihad?

Now, under the intense glare of a worldwide media spotlight, some big questions about Hugo Chavez are about to receive answers.

Is Hugo Chavez, through cronies like countrymen Vasquez-Guerra and Walid Makled—recently called the ‘kingpin of kingpins’ by the U.S. Attorney in New York—a major global drug trafficker?

Is he collaborating in drug trafficking with elements of Al Qaeda, as the DEA charges, creating a drug pipeline from Venezuela through West Africa and the Sahara to Europe?
With the arrest of Carmelo Vasquez-Guerra (who, the government of Venezuela would like you to know, is the 60th drug trafficker being sought by Interpol caught in Venezuela since 2005), the  possibility even exists that answers may be forthcoming.

If Venezuela extradites him to any of a number of countries in where he is wanted for drug trafficking, Chavez will be throwing down the gauntlet—as well as his red beret—in front of the American DEA.

What the world wants to know from the captured pilot are a few of the slippery secrets, which no one doubts he possesses, to help illuminate the real politick of the global drug trade to those of us who have not been initiated, or "read into," what might be called the "clandestine mysteries.'

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