"El Pollo" (The Chicken) is now awaiting his extradition to the
United States claiming it
for drug trafficking for ten years.
The one who headed Venezuelan military intelligence under Hugo Chavez had been wanted for two years.
Hugo Armando Carvajal had used subterfuge to cheat the Spanish police
He had undergone several cosmetic surgeries to change his appearance "and" used (false) mustaches, beards, wigs ", but the Madrid police finally unmasked him and arrested him on Thursday.
"He admitted to having remained permanently in Spain (...) changing his cache every three months" and "never going out in the street", explains the police.
He only ventured "on the terrace" of the apartment where he was hiding, "at night and in disguise".
According to a spokesperson for the National Court of Justice, in charge of extraditions, his transfer to the United States “should not be long”.
His lawyer, Maria Dolores de Argüelles, for her part assured that the Spanish authorities will first have to rule on his client's asylum request and on an appeal filed against his extradition.
Released September 2019
Head of military intelligence during the presidency of the late Hugo Chavez, Hugo Carvajal was arrested in April 2019 in Spain but released in September after the refusal of the Spanish justice to extradite him on the grounds that the request was "politically motivated".
In November 2019, a turnaround: justice reversed its decision and gave the green light to extradition.
"El Pollo" had fled.
Indicted for drug trafficking in 2011 by a New York prosecutor, he is accused of being involved in the importation of cocaine into the United States, including a shipment of 5.6 tons transported from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006. He incurs a sentence of 10 years in prison to life in the United States.
The ex-general had been dismissed from the Venezuelan army by decision of the head of state Nicolas Maduro for having recognized the opponent and self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido. He fled from Venezuela by sea to the Dominican Republic before reaching Spain.