The Aruban government arrested and subsequently released a retired Venezuelan general wanted on United States drug trafficking charges last week, a move that is being hailed by Venezuela but decried in the US.
The release came after the Venezuelan government sent navy ships near Aruba, cancelled air connections between the countries, and threatened to close Curacao’s 8,000-employee oil refinery, Aruban officials said.
Hugo Carvajal, a retired general who was previously Venezuela’s chief of military intelligence, was detained July 24 on the orders of an Aruban judge, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Acting under a US-Aruba treaty, officials planned to extradite Mr. Carvajal to face charges in a US federal court.
According to recently unsealed indictments, he is accused of allowing Colombian drug “kingpins” and rebel groups such as the Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to use Venezuelan territory for trafficking.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of cocaine were reportedly shipped to Mexico and Central America and eventually the US using this method, according to the indictment.
Mr. Carvajal and the Venezuelan government dispute those charges, calling his recent detention a “kidnapping.”
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