Multi-million Dollar Cash Smuggling will be Investigated by Venezuela´s

[Say_What]

Multi-million Dollar Cash Smuggling will be Investigated by Venezuela´s Attorney General

<clips>

Venezuelan toll authorities confiscated a shipment of 2.5 million dollars in cash last December 29th, which is presumed to have been used to circumvent Venezuela’s strict currency controls. The shipment, which entered the country on an American Airlines flight, weighed 25 kilos and was entirely denominated in $100 bills.

Similar transports are said to have taken place on at least seven prior occasions, for a total of about $21 million. In each occasion the recipient of the shipments was Italcambio, a currency exchange agency owned by Carlos Dorado, an important supporter of the opposition.

The earlier transports were not intercepted, which leads authorities to suspect that toll agents are colluding with the smugglers.

Carlos Dorado, the owner of Italcambio, is known to belong to the hard-line opposition against the Chavez government. He writes a regular column in the oppositional newspaper El Universal and is presumed to have financed many of the opposition’s activities.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1153

[Judi Lynn]

1. Works for the opposition, is smuggling in big chunks of U.S. dollars?

Doesn't take a rocket scientist, does it? Hope something serious can be done about this. The wrong people are getting total support from our right-wing, power-mad pResident.

It's interesting _Bush is recalling his Venezuelan embarrassment, Ambassador Charles Shapiro. Anyone with an ounce of decency would have grabbed him back here in a heart beat when he so hideously demonstrated for the world to watch _Bush]s utterly bald contempt for the Venezuelan voters who elected Hugo Chavaez as their President by rushing out to throw his grimey mitts around Pedro Carmona the very instant they thought they had bagged Hugo Chavez for good.

People with any quality would have sacked him on the spot.


The jerk on the left

[Say_What]

4. The jerk on the left

LOL that's good. He looks like the f*ck'n wimp that he actually is.

[Paco]

7. Chimp Indeed!!

Shapiro comes with an impressive resume of supporting repression and destabilization in Latin America. His resume includes a stint as "Desk Officer" for El Salvador 1983-1985, and "Political Counselor" for El Salvador 1985-1988. Shapiro's time of service in El Salvador is coincident with the reign of terror in that country - state sponsored terrorism perpetrated by graduates of the infamous School of the Americas and quite possibly orchestrated by Shapiro himself.

Here is another pair of chimps for you. Gustavo Cisneros is the little brown one next to Poppy Chimp.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Say goodbye, Charles!

(snip) 'Champagne Charlie' Shapiro will begone in Spring; US Embassy spin doctors insist he's quitting the bunker for purely personal reasons...


USA Caracas Ambassador
Charles Shapiro

Controversial right-winger US Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles S. Shapiro is to leave his post officially in September although embassy spin doctors at the bunker on Colinas de Valle Arriba are claiming that he will begone in Spring for "purely personal reasons."

Shapiro hasn't exactly made himself popular with the Venezuelan government and has thoroughly compromised his diplomatic status through a whole series of faux-pas at the behest of the anti-Chavez opposition to the extent that he is seen as something of an embarrassment to the rapprochement that Washington D.C. urgently needs in its thirst for strategic oil supplies from traditionally reliable supplier Venezuela.

With the possibility of fresh USA-initiated conflagration breaking out in the Middle East and threats to the stability of the Saudi Royal Family, the Beltway mandarins are beginning to realize that the red-neck hype from Shapiro and his equally anti-Venezuelan henchman Otto Reich is counter-productive, especially set against a Venezuelan domestic political scenario in which, at the end of the day, the National Elections Council (CNE) could well be forced to tell the world that the opposition referendum signature campaign was so filled with fraud that it fails. (snip)

(snip) Caracas Union Radio Network is claiming that Shapiro will be replaced by the United States' current Ambassador to Chile, William Brownfield although information from within the Beltway allows us to believe that the appointment will only be a stop-gap measure as the US State Department grapples with how best to get rid of "problematic" Shapiro before he does more diplomatic damage.
(snip/)

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=14402
(Free registration required)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Americas
Arrogant US Ambassador to Venezuela Charles S. Shapiro says its not a crime to kill a President,
By AP
Sep 30, 2003, 11:03


(snip) In an Associated Press (AP) dispatch the United States government has said it will open up an investigation into allegations made by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias relative to conspiracy to assassinate him. Chavez Frias has said that "terrorist groups" in southern Florida have allied with Miami-based anti-Castro radicals.

Amazingly US Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles S. Shapiro says "it is not necessarily a crime ... but we are in the full process of collecting information and we must follow all legal procedures ... if there is anyone to blame, our government knows what to do!"

With typical Washington cover-up rhetoric, Shapiro shakily admits that he has received information that "some Venezuelans have been receiving military training in the United States." He further admits that the information was also published in a Miami newspaper a year ago ... but remains remarkably silent as to why no action was taken by proper authorities Stateside. "We're not going to take action against anybody ... we haven't been able to make any headway!"
(snip/...)

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_1905.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Pedro Carmona, doing his version of the photo of Harry Truman, holding aloft the newspaper which had prematurely claimed Thomas Dewey President of the U.S.

In this case, Carmona appears to be holding the paper declaring himself President of Venezuela.

[Paco]

2. Payment for services rendered?

I read in aporrea.org that the cash came from the nefarious Gustavo Cisneros and his Cisneros Group by way of Miami to Carlos Dorado. The Cisneros-Miami-Dorado smuggling ring was set up by the radical extremist group the "Coordinara Democratica" (CA) during a visit to Washington and Miami by CA leaders. It appears that the smuggled money is intended as payment to the various extremist groups intent on overthrowing President Chavez for services rendered and for their continued enthusiasm in the "recall" effort. In particular need of an immediate infusion of cash is the Nazi rag "El Nacional" which is on the brink of bankruptcy - apparently crime doesn't pay.





:kick:

[Say_What]

3. article at vheadline said pretty much the same thing

<clips>

Cisneros-Miami-Dorado crime connection behind seized US$2.5 million?

Venezuela's opposition print & broadcast media are maintaining a remarkable blackout on the reporting of the December 30 seizure of an illegal shipment of US$2.5 million in a Transvalcar value-transport aboard an American Airlines flight from Miami (Florida) at the behest of Italcambio boss Carlos Dorado.

* Dorado, an opposition proselyte and leading financier to the anti-Chavez Frias movement, has not yet made any official statement but the pro-government newspaper Diario VEA says there are links between the $2.5 million cache of greenbacks and the Cisneros Group -- another thread in the network of opposition efforts to dislodge the democratically-elected President of Venezuela by all and any means.

VEA says Italcambio staffers are in fear of their lives as police detectives probe the provenance of the US$ and claim that informants have already been threatened by 'enforcers' for the shadowy billionaire, who is an intimate friend of former CIA director and former US President George Bush Sr.

The usually "happy to comment on anything negative" US Embassy in Caracas remains resolutely mum about the seizure and investigations that have proceeded since the American Airlines flight touched down at Caracas (Simon Bolivar) international airport last Monday.

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=14400

[Judi Lynn]

6. Hope a lot of people find out about this

AS our media is completely silent on _Bush's designs on Venezuela, they'll need to check international sources, and keep their eyes on places like MIAMI!

From your second article:

(snip) A disenchanted US State Department source told VHeadline.com today that "it may be seen as a cynical question but, in the knowledge of everything that has gone before with USA covert support to Venezuela's anti-government rebels, it would be a given conclusion that the White House is up to its neck with Cisneros in plotting against Chavez Frias."

White House watchers are, however, more immediately interested in West Wing developments where Condoleeza Rice is expected to take over from US Secretary of State Colin Powell who is,himself expected to exit the political stage following complications from his recent prostate cancer surgery.

Meanwhile, back in Caracas, Finance (Hacienda) Ministry officials say that as much as US$18 million may have passed illegally through Caracas international airport in the month of December alone. Interior & Justice (MIJ) officials are already on the track of massive amounts of black market dollars which have been used to finance black propaganda campaigns against the government and to pay for opposition acts of terrorism against government installations.

Sources say that leading members of a shadowy Group 5 and right-wing extremists on the fringe of Coordinadora Democratica (CD) have been fingered and that Venezuelan authorities have already established an organized crime connection "Cisneros-Miami-Dorado" also linked to the majority owners of the now near bankrupted El Nacional newspaper and activists in discredited political parties Accion Democratica (AD) and Primero Justicia (PJ). (snip)

It was beautiful reading Paco's remark that El Nacional is running out of cash.

Also wanted to remind people that Gustavo Cisneros, lord of all he surveys in Venezuela, owner of mega media holdings, is a close personal friend of the elder George W. Bush, and the impeached-for-corruption ex-President, Carlos Andres Perez.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Does this sound familiar to you?

(snip) Bush 2 administration increasingly divided over credibility of intelligence reports

In a weekend special report, the Miami Herald says that the Bush 2 administration is growing increasingly divided over the credibility (or lack of it) of intelligence reports on President Hugo Chavez Frias' alleged links to left-wing Colombian guerrillas ... ''it's getting very testy, because the believers and skeptics want to quote only from the reports that agree with their own views,'' an unnamed US government official involved in the dispute is quoted as saying.

The Miami Herald says the debate has remained largely out of the (USA) public eye because skeptics and believers agree that making the allegations against Chavez Frias public would only "push him further into the anti-American left and divert attention from a drive by his domestic opponents for a recall referendum."

The Miami Herald: Both sides also agree that there's no hard evidence that Chavez approved any assistance on weapons or false identity documents to the Colombian rebels. 'There is no smoking gun on Chavez' personal intervention or direction on this,'' said a government official (unnamed), describing his words as the consensus in Washington. (snip/...)

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=14226

[Judi Lynn]

9. Why did they hold this back from us?

No one told us just how popular Charles Shapiro actually became in Venezuela. You'd think it was simply "business as usual," from the total silence from our own media, after the _Bush-fed pro-coup glut!

Maybe Washington was too modest to want to boast about this tribute U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro, who aided the Venezuelan coup members:

(snip) Massive turnout expected to call for expulsion of US Ambassador Shapiro from Venezuela

Citizens for the Defense of the (Venezuelan) Constitution are calling for a massive demonstration of force tomorrow, Friday, to demand that the government should unceremoniously kick US clown prince Ambassador Charles Shapiro out of Venezuela for allowing the political opposition to insult the Head of State in a clearly inappropriate opposition rally at his embassy residence in La Florida last week.

Demonstrators are scheduled to gather in the vicinity of the National Pantheon in downtown Caracas from 10:00 a.m. and delegations are already on their way from all across Venezuela to take part in the anti-Shapiro rally.

"We are going to manifest our categorical and most absolute rejection of the disrespectful event which was approved by the Ambassador of the United States of America in Venezuela. Mr. Shapiro should be made painfully aware that his behavior in our country is not conducive to good diplomatic relations ... it is not the first time that he has over-stepped the mark and he is now considered to be an enemy of the Venezuelan people. We urge that his superiors should immediately remove him before he does any more damage to Venezuela-USA relations and to replace him with someone who has some respect for the role s/he should play as a diplomatic representative ... he is in clear violation of principles outlined in the Vienna Convention. Perhaps he thinks that the United States does not need to observe such international niceties..."

"Shapiro has abused Venezuelan sovereignty and self-determination by sticking his nose in where it has not been warranted, much less wanted. Venezuela has always given diplomatic representatives from other countries a warm and cordial welcome ... but Shapiro has incited to discord, bad blood, ruin, pain and greater division among Venezuelans ... he has been responsible for a string of situations adding to political and economic instability in Venezuela, he is always lurking in the background of every attempt to sabotage Venezuela."
(snip/...)

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=7567
(Free registration required)

You really like to hear it when an American does well in another country, don't you?

Shapiro's following his orders in just the way _Bush's appointment to head the American Interests Section in Havana is following his, as did the beast, Vicki Huddleston, before him.