"Pollo Carvajal" arrested for drug trafficking in Madrid 0:53
(CNN Spanish) -
The former director of intelligence of Venezuela, Hugo Carvajal Barrios, was arrested this Thursday in Madrid at 9:15 PM, local time, by agents of the National Police.
The operation, carried out in close collaboration with the United States Anti-Drug Agency (DEA), as indicated by the National Police itself, was carried out to comply with the judicial claim issued by the National Court in November 2019. In that At the time, the Spanish court agreed to his extradition to the United States to be tried for alleged drug trafficking, among other crimes.
His capture was a challenge for the security body, after his escape in November 2019, according to the National Police in a press release.
Carvajal would have hidden his identity by submitting "to several cosmetic surgery operations to modify his appearance and that, in addition, he would be using all kinds of disguise elements to facilitate his concealment, among which mustaches, beards and false wigs were detected."
Obstacles to which, it should be added, the lack of property or material goods in his name that would help to locate him, as well as that he used “several of the consorts as interposed figures of his entire confidence, with the sole purpose of trying to go unnoticed for the Security Forces and Bodies and not to leave any trace that allows identifying their presence in national territory ”.
Spain will not extradite Hugo Carvajal 2:09
After months of investigation, in which the National Police had the collaboration of the DEA, they finally managed to find the whereabouts of the fugitive.
As reported in the same press release shared with the media, several agents of the Spanish security force were able to enter the house where he was hiding, after obtaining the corresponding entry and registration authorization from the Guard Court.
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An entry that was not easy, as detailed, since they had to tear down an armored door in the surroundings of a fortified floor.
It was in one of the last rooms of the house that they found Carvajal locked up, in a "desperate attempt to avoid police arrest."
The agents of the Police Intervention Unit who carried out the operation had to neutralize and shackle him after removing a sharp knife that he carried with him, according to the account detailed in a press release by the National Police.
What the defense of Hugo Carvajal said
After being arrested, the police force assures that Carvajal acknowledged having remained in Spain at all times and that, every three months, “he changed his hiding place using different addresses where he lived completely cloistered, without going out into the street at any time, in fear. for the public dissemination of his image ”.
His arrest came as a surprise, according to his lawyer María Dolores Argüelles.
He indicates that his client pleads not guilty to the charges for which the United States claims him and, for that reason, they will present very precautionary measures before the Supreme Court to prevent the extradition from being effective.
Hugo Carvajal opposes being extradited to the US 2:07
In that sense, Argüelles adds that beyond the resources and measures they present, the extradition cannot be made effective until the asylum procedure that Carvajal has opened in Spain since the second quarter of 2019 is resolved.
A detail that, according to the lawyer, is observed in the agreement of the Council of Ministers of Spain of March 3, 2020 where the approval of its delivery is recorded.
For this reason, and while the appeals presented by his defense are resolved, as well as the asylum request, Carvajal will remain detained in the penitentiary center indicated by the National Court.
Hugo Carvajal