Bring criminals in Caracas to justice | American Enterprise Institute by root

After a year of relentless sanctions aimed at cutting off cash to regime leaders in Caracas, Nicolás Maduro and his cronies are still tormenting and starving Venezuelans and sowing crime and terror in the Americas. Even as the coronavirus hits a beleaguered Venezuela, the world should know that the Maduro regime will only ever be a source of suffering for the Venezuelan people. US policymakers should reject schemes for treating the symptoms of the “madurovirus” with phony elections, expose the dangerous criminal cabal, and make the case for quarantining and defeating this virulent threat.

The roots of this crisis run deep, the effects are spreading, and the costs to US interests are soaring. While the Obama administration did next to nothing, Hugo Chávez consolidated a dictatorship and aided narcoterrorists to torment the US ally Colombia. Drug traffickers partnered with kingpins in Caracas have decimated democratic institutions and strangled honest commerce in Central America. Right on the US border, powerful criminal syndicates with Venezuelan co-conspirators are operating with virtual immunity in Mexico.

Venezuela has become a regional hub of transnational organized crime — a lawless global network with $2.2 trillion in annual revenue. Narcotraffickers from Mexico and Colombia; henchmen from Cuba, Russia, China, and Iran; and terror groups from Colombia and the Middle East all derive money and power from Venezuela.

Today, Russian energy interests are defying US sanctions to snatch up Venezuelan energy assets. Cuba’s dependence on free Venezuelan oil has entered a third decade. And, Colombian guerrillas smuggle cocaine, gold, and gasoline in virtual partnership with the Maduro regime. These dangerous and powerful allies will never surrender their windfall willingly.

To his credit, President Trump recognized this threat early in his term, and he has targeted regime leaders with US Treasury Department sanctions aimed at freezing their assets. In February 2017, Treasury sanctioned one-time vice president Tareck el-Aissami for narcotics trafficking and related money laundering; Maduro himself was sanctioned later that year for dictatorial actions. In the last year, the Trump administration has ratcheted up sanctions vigorously to choke off currency to the regime and its supporters in Russia and other countries.

Unfortunately, the leverage generated by these sanctions has been squandered in the vain pursuit of dialogue and elections. Maduro and his cronies have learned that, as long as they remain united and defiant, their ill-gotten billions mean they have little to fear from US sanctions or pliable opponents. Despite this track record, some continue to propose a political solution to a criminal problem, even if they have to feign ignorance of 20 years of evidence of a narcostate to legitimize this strategy.

When Maduro and his cronies chose to loot billions in oil revenue and traffic in deadly drugs, they knew they might end up in a prison cell or an early grave. But they’re not going to surrender to either fate. According to published reports and other sources, US law enforcement officials have been investigating Maduro and his crime family for more than a decade. It is time to unsheathe indictments and unleash tough security measures to bring criminals to justice.