Caracas Chronicles

• For the last three weeks, the Servicio Administrativo de Identificación, Migración y Extranjería (SAIME), the authority in charge of providing ID services to Venezuelans, has only been open to hand over identity documents that were produced before its “website crashed” on June 17th. All other identification services, from requesting a passport appointment to renewing an ID card have been offline, violating Venezuelans’ right to identity. No authorities have released information or explanations about it. No appointments for passports have been issued, in the country or abroad. The system is so centralized that immigration officers at airports do everything by hand. On Sunday, July 10th, IT professional Jesús Lara said the website disappeared from Google searches because “the domain registry has been deleted.” He found that the website didn’t crash, it was deleted on June 17th, 2022, as can be verified on the DNS complete history. After the information went viral, SAIME put the website back online with an image saying they’re doing maintenance but Lara said that the SSL certificate was bought yesterday at 10:00 a.m, and that the HTML where the image is hosted was built in February 2021. SAIME director Gustavo Vizcaíno promised before the system crashed ago that they’d be handing out 25,000 passports per day starting August. 
• ANC-imposed prosecutor general Tarek William Saab posted a video where Mayi Cumare, Carlos Lanz’s wife, confesses to planning his murder. Cumare read a script including praise for the Prosecutor’s Office: “The Public Ministry, in an efficient manner, reactivated several actions that imply a more solid investigation,” she read. Saab reiterated that a lie detector test and psychiatric evaluations determined that Cumare was lying and she confessed, two years later and without a reason. Former prosecutor Zair Mundaray assured that the ministry hasn’t acted in accordance with the law and there’s no investigation where the State proves its case beyond reasonable doubt. Without Castellano and Cumare’s testimonies, the State can’t prove they’re guilty because there’s no weapon, body, blood, or forensic genetics to prove it. Mundaray warned this case isn’t closed. 
• Maduro’s foreign minister Carlos Faría met with Brian Glynn, managing director of the European External Action Service for the “relations between the EU and Venezuela, based on diplomacy.” Faría said that he expressed his intention of “strengthening cooperation in matters of energy, the environment, and health.” 
• Saab also said in an interview with Maduro’s culture minister Ernesto Villegas that the court’s ruling in the case of the failed magnicide attempt where 16 people, including Juan Requesens, have been charged will be a guilty verdict. The trial isn’t over. 
• Venezuela is the second country in Latin America with the most hunger, according to a study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In 2013 and 2014, they recognized Hugo Chávez for “overcoming poverty and hunger.” The Caribbean is the region with the highest proportion of affected inhabitants, with Haiti at 47%, Venezuela at 23%, and Nicaragua at 19%.

Active and retired public workers protested outside the offices of the UN Development Program for the wage cuts, missing bonus payments, and reduction or elimination of benefits. 

• The INAMEH reported that tropical wave Nº 16 will pass over the central region, and will cause rains, electrical storms and strong winds. They reiterated that a large flow of Saharan dust is advancing towards the Caribbean and will reach the country between Wednesday and Friday. 
• Hidrocapital tweeted pictures of maintenance and repairs on the Tuy III system, which will be completed on Tuesday afternoon. 
• The U.S. government extended the TPS for Venezuelan citizens until March 10th, 2024. 
• Carlos Orense Azocar, a Venezuelan charged for drug traffick, was extradited in late June from Italy to the U.S. A.k.a El Gordo is considered one of the main logistics operatives of the Los Soles cartel: “He’s the great operator (…) the man who handles logistics and moves the drugs,” reported the Nuevo Herald.