A headlamp! A headlamp! My cocaine kingdom for a headlamp!
Drug traffickers have just as hard a time finding spare parts for their cars as you do. Which is a good thing, as far as Colombian police is concerned.
The AP’s Joshua Goodman has this juicy exclusive on the indictment and looming trial of Gersain Viafara-Mina, a relatively low-level player in the booming drug trade out of makeshift Apure State air fields. While Viafara-Mina is small fry, but he’s of interest to international investigators because the only way he managed to get his coke airborne was by paying off very powerful people in the Venezuelan military.
The best part, though, is how the Colombians managed to nab him:
U.S. and Colombian officials had been tracking him for at least two years, but he appears to have been done in by Venezuela’s economic crisis, which has led to shortages of all sorts. Investigators caught him when he crossed the border to the Colombian town of Puerto Carreno to pick up a spare headlamp for his truck…
That, my friend, is the world’s most expensive headlamp.
Caracas Chronicles is 100% reader-supported.
We’ve been able to hang on for 22 years in one of the craziest media landscapes in the world. We’ve seen different media outlets in Venezuela (and abroad) closing shop, something we’re looking to avoid at all costs. Your collaboration goes a long way in helping us weather the storm.
Donate