Clíver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, former Venezuelan general, on Friday surrendered to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) just a day after being indicted by US federal prosecutors and having a $10 million reward posted for his capture.
Alcalá surrendered to Colombia’s National Intelligence Directorate in Bogota and is now in the custody of the US DEA, El Tiempo reported, citing unnamed sources.
Alcalá left his position in Venezuela’s armed forces in 2013. US federal prosecutors alleged he had been “a leader and manager of the Cartel of the Suns,” a supposed drug smuggling ring inside the Venezuelan government the US government has claimed makes leading Venezuelan officials “narco-terrorists.”
Alcalá and 13 other Venezuelans were indicted in the Southern District Court of New York on Thursday on narco-terrorism charges and the State Department placed a US$10 million bounty on his head.
The charges by the US Department of Justice claim that in 2008, Alcalá helped provide support for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a communist militia group in rebellion against the Colombian government and which plays a role in cultivating coca, used to manufacture cocaine.
Maduro was also among those indicted. On Thursday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza blasted the charges as “desperate.”
The European Union, which also backs Guaido’s claims, endorsed the American charges on Thursday, with EU foreign affairs spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson calling them “progressive measures of pressure in the context of the political crisis in Venezuela.”
