Ex-Venezuelan spy chief is extradited from Spain to US on drug trafficking charges

By ARITZ PARRA and JOSHUA GOODMAN
Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — A former Venezuelan spymaster close to the country’s late leader Hugo Chávez has been extradited to New York from Spain to face decade-old drug trafficking charges. Retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal will enter a not guilty plea at his initial appearance Thursday in Manhattan federal court, his lawyer says. Carvajal advised Chávez for more than a decade. He later broke with Chávez’s handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, and threw his support behind his U.S. backed opponents. He had been fighting extradition since his arrest in 2019. Prosecutors in New York allege that Carvajal used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 12,300 pounds of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006.