Former Maduro general held on narcotrafficking charges now facing new investigation

Kevin G. Hall, Antonio Maria Delgado, Shirsho Dasgupta
·5 min read

A former Venezuelan general extradited to the United States under an indictment against 15 current and ex-members of the Maduro regime that leads the oil-rich country faces additional possible federal prosecution, lawyers revealed Wednesday during a court hearing.

The revelation involving former Major Gen. Cliver Alcalá Cordones, dropped in the middle of a largely procedural court hearing in his narcotrafficking case, added a fresh layer of intrigue to a case already bordering on surreal. One alleged co-conspirator has gone missing in Spain, and the allegations against the general involving bribery and cocaine smuggling are all separate from his self-described plotting of a revolution in exile.

In late March, Alcalá surrendered in Colombia and was extradited to the United States, weeks ahead of a botched May coup attempt in Venezuela that he had been instrumental in planning along with a Florida security company.

Is he a drug thug or a liberator?

Having publicly broken with the Maduro regime, he acknowledged in media interviews in early 2020 that he was working with former soldiers to liberate Venezuela.

Alcalá gave himself up in the Colombian city of Barranquilla, where he’d been living, shortly after the State Department offered a $10 million reward for his capture. He was flown to White Plains, N.Y., at which point he largely disappeared from public view. Alcalá is nowhere to be found on the public-facing Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator website.

The case against Alcalá, 59, is being closely watched because it is rare that the United States brings criminal charges against the top leadership of a foreign government. The U.S. indictment in March alleges Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his inner circle run a narco-state, and that Alcalá worked closely with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to move cocaine through Venezuela and out to the United States.

Also in that indictment was Hugo “The Chicken” Carvajal, a former Venezuelan intelligence chief who was detained in Spain on April of 2019 on an outstanding U.S. arrest warrant from 2011. The State Department had offered a $10 million reward for him, too, and shortly before his detention he made a video calling on Venezuela’s armed forces to revolt against Maduro. Carvajal was slated to be extradited in November but vanished and has not been seen in public since.

Alex Saab also appears on the extradition wish list. The Colombian businessman is wanted by federal prosecutors in South Florida on charges he swindled $350 million from the Venezuelan government and paid off officials for contracts.

Arrested in Cape Verde last June, Saab received a blow this week when a local appellate court there approved his extradition. His lawyers pledged to appeal to the highest court, but Colombian news sites suggested that the businessman with close ties to the Maduro regime appeared set for extradition.

Because federal courts are largely closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alcalá appeared by prison phone, speaking through an interpreter at a status hearing Wednesday held by Judge Alvin Kenneth Hellerstein, a senior district judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

A communication between Jordan Goudreau, self-described coup plotter, and an unidentified source. They discussed putting together a team to capture Nicolás Maduro and collect a $15 million reward.
A communication between Jordan Goudreau, self-described coup plotter, and an unidentified source. They discussed putting together a team to capture Nicolás Maduro and collect a $15 million reward.

The hearing ended almost as quickly as it started, when a government prosecutor informed Hellerstein that more time was needed to review documents in a separate investigation into Alcalá by a different government agency.

That was news, and sparked concern with Hellerstein. He appeared to worry about the selective release of documents that could hurt Alcalá’s ability to defend himself.

“They’re being filtered for you, someone is making the cut?” the judge asked, referring to the documents.

Prosecutor Matthew Laroche responded there was no filtering and that his office was reviewing all the documents to determine which were relevant to the broader U.S. case against Alcalá and the other 14 co-defendants.

The proceedings were pushed back to March 10 to allow time to review the records, and for Alcalá’s defense to receive more of what his lawyer suggested is already a massive number of documents.

This photo that came from the phone of self-described coup leader Jordan Goudreau shows a whiteboard showing degrees of planning needed to execute the overthrow of the Maduro government
This photo that came from the phone of self-described coup leader Jordan Goudreau shows a whiteboard showing degrees of planning needed to execute the overthrow of the Maduro government

“They have produced voluminous amounts of discovery so we have more than enough to go through,” said César de Castro, the New York-based lead defense attorney. Discovery is the process where parties share documents and information that might be presented at trial.

Prosecutors did not disclose anything about the other investigation involving Alcalá, but multiple people involved in the failed coup in May have acknowledged providing statements to the FBI. The FBI’s Tampa office seized money from Jordan Goudreau, whose firm Silvercorp USA was involved in the training of coup plotters, but later said it would return the cash. The FBI office has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter.

Goudreau was featured in a joint investigation by the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald and McClatchy that detailed how the coup efforts came about with the knowledge of some in or tied to the Trump administration.

Survivors of the botched effort blame infiltration by the Maduro regime for the killing of participants and the capture and imprisonment of two Americans who worked with Goudreau — Luke Denman and Airan Berry.

Yacsy Alvarez, a Venezuelan translator with ties to Tampa, helped Goudreau communicate with Alcalá. She faces possible prosecution in Colombia for helping Goudreau and the general get weapons into the country for use in the failed coup.