Venezuela a hot spot in global drugs trade

By Christian Oliver

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's role in the global drugs trade is growing fast with traffickers stashing cocaine under shrimp hauls on fishing boats and beneath the leather seats of luxury jets passing through Caracas.

International anti-drug specialists say corruption inside Venezuela's security forces has turned the country into a major route for smugglers moving cocaine from neighbouring Colombia, the world's top producer, to the European and U.S. markets.

The United States pins much of the blame on President Hugo Chavez, a firebrand socialist who is Washington's fiercest critic and rival in Latin America.

Washington accuses Chavez of fanning the drug trade by cutting ties with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2005, and of doing little to flush out corrupt police chiefs or arrest Colombian kingpins it says are hiding in Venezuela.

"Venezuela's permissive and corrupt environment led to more trafficking, fewer seizures and an increase in suspected drug flights in the past 12 months," U.S. assistant secretary of state Anne Patterson said in March.

In a sign of how comfortable traffickers feel exporting through Venezuela, smugglers last month loaded cocaine bales onto a private plane headed for Africa -- out in the open on the tarmac at the resort island of Margarita's main airport.

They were not expecting to be nabbed because the operation -- run by Colombian and Mexican cartels to smuggle more than two tonnes to Congo -- also involved senior police and the regional anti-drugs chief.

They were all arrested, however, and the government says that shows Venezuela is serious about tackling the cartels.