US Attack on Venezuela and Capture of Maduro

[IvanV]

... and Greenland (which would be a de facto attack on NATO that would trigger Article 5)

Which could possibly mean the practical end of NATO, unless the other NATO members actually answered the call to assist against the US.

The Greenland thing seems very silly to me. Trump clearly wants the legacy of achieve some great deal like the Alaska purchase. But Greenland is worth far less, and the US can get what it wants without taking control of it.

The US has more or less unlimited permission to establish military bases there. It currently has one. But previously had it had several, and closed all but the one remaining.

The Greenland authorities have been hawking out opportunities to mine there for a long time. But little has come of it, because it's among the highest cost locations on the planet to try to operate in. Typically you are looking at sites with no infrastructure, no worthwhile local labour force, and horrible weather. And operators will suffer European level monitoring in terms of their labour conditions and environmental effects. The main advantage is low political risk. Recently a gold mine opened at Nalunaq in SW Greenland, and I think that is the only large mine established and brought into operation in recent times. There are approved projects for a gemstone mine, a graphite mine and an aluminium ore mine, but these are yet to open. Permission for a uranium mine was denied, because of pollution risk. As far as I am aware, these are all projects proposed by "western" interests. There has been much talk about rare earths, etc, but little actual action, because of the high costs.

The only advantage to Trump of taking over Greenland would seem to be the ability to exclude others from operating there. But the Chinese aren't trying to operate there. It really isn't their kind of thing, and the Greenlanders are suspicious of them. The Chinese would prefer to manage political risk in low cost countries, and avoid having their labour and environmental practices monitored. So it is probably very low down China's shopping list. Maybe that will change one day.

[IvanV]

It occurs to me that if the US successfully prosecuted Maduro for something, and put him in prison, it might set a precedent that could be very annoying to Trump.

China and Russia are calling Maduro's abduction to face trial, an illegal act. If some other country abducted Trump, and put him on trial for money laundering or something, Trump would doubtless say that was an illegal act.

A criminal trial in New York of Maduro might run into some difficulty. The DoJ, now run by people who do what Trump says, rather than having any competence to run the DoJ in the usual sense, have been following Trump orders to charge people Trump doesn't like. Several of these trials have collapsed at an early stage due to absence of anything resembling a case. So I don't know what wonderful charges and evidence they have for Maduro, but it is hard to believe there is much, especially given the fantasy nature of what Trump talks about in relation to him.

Trump says Maduro runs an organised crime group called the Cartel del Sol. In reality, this name is a Venezuelan slang term for the criminal and kleptocratic networks in the armed forces, not an actual organised crime group. It seems very unlikely that you can pin specific criminal acts of the nature of drug running on Maduro. We make the traditional citation of Al Capone at this point, who we all know did actually run an organised crime group, but the only thing they could pin on him was tax evasion. Mickey Cohen is a more recent similar case. So prosecuting people for running organised crime groups tends to be difficult, and this is likely to be compounded when they are foreign and don't actually exist.

Doubtless Maduro has kleptocratic gains and hides them somewhere. So maybe he can be done for money laundering. But money laundering is very hard to prosecute, especially if people do it well, and generally they do these days. Jordan Belfort, the "Wolf of Wall Street", got done for it because he employed an incompetent Swiss money launderer to do it for him, one incompetent enough to be convicted by the Swiss authorities for it. People are generally cleverer about it these days.

Since Trump has been corruptly gaining massively from his own presidency, putting another president on trial for money laundering looks like the kind of thing Trump would find very inconvenient.

[Grumble]

As a commenter on Bluesky pointed out, the US administration effectively says that it can prosecute other states heads for criminal activity but not their own.

[Tessa K]

Ah yes, the Don't do as I do, do as I say school of international law

[FlammableFlower]

It occurs to me that if the US successfully prosecuted Maduro for something, and put him in prison, it might set a precedent that could be very annoying to Trump.

China and Russia are calling Maduro's abduction to face trial, an illegal act. If some other country abducted Trump, and put him on trial for money laundering or something, Trump would doubtless say that was an illegal act.

A criminal trial in New York of Maduro might run into some difficulty. The DoJ, now run by people who do what Trump says, rather than having any competence to run the DoJ in the usual sense, have been following Trump orders to charge people Trump doesn't like. Several of these trials have collapsed at an early stage due to absence of anything resembling a case. So I don't know what wonderful charges and evidence they have for Maduro, but it is hard to believe there is much, especially given the fantasy nature of what Trump talks about in relation to him.

Trump says Maduro runs an organised crime group called the Cartel del Sol. In reality, this name is a Venezuelan slang term for the criminal and kleptocratic networks in the armed forces, not an actual organised crime group. It seems very unlikely that you can pin specific criminal acts of the nature of drug running on Maduro. We make the traditional citation of Al Capone at this point, who we all know did actually run an organised crime group, but the only thing they could pin on him was tax evasion. Mickey Cohen is a more recent similar case. So prosecuting people for running organised crime groups tends to be difficult, and this is likely to be compounded when they are foreign and don't actually exist.

Doubtless Maduro has kleptocratic gains and hides them somewhere. So maybe he can be done for money laundering. But money laundering is very hard to prosecute, especially if people do it well, and generally they do these days. Jordan Belfort, the "Wolf of Wall Street", got done for it because he employed an incompetent Swiss money launderer to do it for him, one incompetent enough to be convicted by the Swiss authorities for it. People are generally cleverer about it these days.

Since Trump has been corruptly gaining massively from his own presidency, putting another president on trial for money laundering looks like the kind of thing Trump would find very inconvenient.

Allegedly Maduro was indicted by the US back in 2020. Not sure on what grounds and whether that can/will be relevant to the current situation.

[dyqik]

The US has had a few attempts to do a deal with Venezuela in recent years, usually because of all that oil, whose extraction has considerably fallen since foreign oil companies and their expertise were kicked out. The Venezuelan authorities have a consistent recent history of reneging on every one, pretty much entirely, and generally quite quickly. The last one with Joe Biden was very obviously reneged on within a few days. But it took a few months for the US to give up on it and return to the prior sanctions. So doubtless Venezuelan kleptocrats did nicely out of that temporary relaxation of sanctions.

It's worth noting that there are estimates that the Venezuelan oil industry is extremely outdated, and mostly produces low grade heavy oil that is largely uneconomic to drill for in the current economic environment. It needs tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and probably a decade to see any return at all.

It's also likely that Trump doesn't understand any of that.

The Venezuelan oil industry uses old technology, but if it's working it's not outdated (merely not the most up-to-date, which very little in the oil industry is as things get built for a life of 25-40 years!)

Also, Venezuelan oil does tend to be heavy oil (more longer-chain hydrocarbons) but that actually makes it useful as lubrication oils, tars and bitumens can be extracted from it. A lot of the oil the USA is producing now is light (OK for making petrols and such, but not for heavy ends) and so Venezuelan oil is actually attractive to the American market.

The problem I heard stated is that heavy oils just don't sell for the same profits as light oils.

Additionally, I've seen some questions raised about the size of the Venezuelan oil reserves - the international estimates comparing oil field sizes are based on self-reporting by countries and state-owned oil producers (PDVSA for Venezuela), who were quite possibly told to inflate the estimates by e.g. Hugo Chavez. I don't know how realistic that line is thinking is though.

[Martin_B]

The Venezuelan oil industry uses old technology, but if it's working it's not outdated (merely not the most up-to-date, which very little in the oil industry is as things get built for a life of 25-40 years!)

Only some of it is working, which is why they are only producing 1/3 of what they used to produce, despite fields being very far from exhausted.

I would suspect that this is due to equipment breaking down and not being able to be repaired due to embargoes on the import of machinery, rather than the technology itself being outdated, though.

[Martin_B]

It's worth noting that there are estimates that the Venezuelan oil industry is extremely outdated, and mostly produces low grade heavy oil that is largely uneconomic to drill for in the current economic environment. It needs tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and probably a decade to see any return at all.

It's also likely that Trump doesn't understand any of that.

The Venezuelan oil industry uses old technology, but if it's working it's not outdated (merely not the most up-to-date, which very little in the oil industry is as things get built for a life of 25-40 years!)

Also, Venezuelan oil does tend to be heavy oil (more longer-chain hydrocarbons) but that actually makes it useful as lubrication oils, tars and bitumens can be extracted from it. A lot of the oil the USA is producing now is light (OK for making petrols and such, but not for heavy ends) and so Venezuelan oil is actually attractive to the American market.

The problem I heard stated is that heavy oils just don't sell for the same profits as light oils.

Additionally, I've seen some questions raised about the size of the Venezuelan oil reserves - the international estimates comparing oil field sizes are based on self-reporting by countries and state-owned oil producers (PDVSA for Venezuela), who were quite possibly told to inflate the estimates by e.g. Hugo Chavez. I don't know how realistic that line is thinking is though.

They may not have the same profits as light oils, because the processing costs are higher, but these heavy oils aren't worthless; and as Venezuela has close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico (sorry America) processing plants, as I said they could be attractive to America which is producing less of it's own heavy oil.

As to the size of the Venezuelan reserves, they were independently verified when Venezuela still had outside investment, because no investor will take the government's word on this. The reserves have reduced more or less in line with reported production. There hasn't been a lot of increase in reserves, partly as there hasn't been a lot of investment in searching for new fields. It may be that some of their reserves are less available for production due to the poor levels of infrastructure, poor maintenance, etc, but those reserves are still there, just may be stranded.

-edit-
Although I should admit that calculation of reserves is a bit of a black art. If Rockdoctor was still around he'd be able to give you far more information than I on how reserves are 'calculated' (estimated/guessed).

[Formerly AvP]

Via Sal Mercogliano and "What's Going on With Shipping" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcpg0S6LSTY : well worth following, I think, although I sometimes disagree strongly with his pro-US perspective), the New York Times has a story that 16 tankers have left Venezuela (presumably loaded) and have headed out towards the Atlantic , generally switching off or spoofing their location signals. At least some may have re-registered as 'Russian'. Sixteen interceptions might strain the boarding and resources of the US Coastguard/Navy, and, although Sal doesn't mention it in this video, the tankers then may need replacement cews or at least captains to bring them into port, if the crew do not cooperate.

[IvanV]

Allegedly Maduro was indicted by the US back in 2020. Not sure on what grounds and whether that can/will be relevant to the current situation.

In researching a reply on another thread, I came across the Narcosobrinos (wiki) affair of 2015, where a couple of Maduro's wife's close relatives were caught pretty much red-handed handling around a tonne of drugs, mostly cocaine.

More broadly there is intelligence related to the Venezuelan authorities facilitating movement of drugs from Colombia through Venezuela. After the death of Chávez, generally speaking it has tended to be Diosdado Cabello's name, the Interior Minister, that is most closely associated with this, as recorded in this wiki article on Ven govt involvement in drug trafficking.

Another wiki article sets out facts around the indictment of Maduro, part of a longer article on the drugs trade in Venezuela. It seems the best they could do was accuse him of conspiring with FARC. Apparently the authorities were allowing FARC to transport drugs by air from a military base in Venezuela to locations in Central America, from where they continued by land towards the USA. It is notable that the wider article mostly refers to things that happened some time ago, there is very little mention of what is going on these days. If Colombian drug traffickers can find ways out of Colombia that avoid having to be taxed by the Venezuelans, they will do that. We read that much goes by sea up the west coast these days.

Apparently some $700m of assets have recently been sequestered by the US government in Florida and the Dominican Rep. The DOJ describe these as "Maduro's" assets, but such is the present DOJ I doubt there is legal precision in that description. It seems exceedingly unlikely that Maduro himself would have assets in Florida. That's not a place he can ever realistically expect to go to.

It seems to me more likely that even the 2020 indictment was a political act to put pressure on Maduro, rather than a serious attempt to prosecute him. Even if there is clear intelligence of drug flights from Venezuelan military bases, etc, connecting that legally to Maduro is another thing. Even if Maduro can be shown to be very wealthy, well that's just normal in the context of leaders of many dodgy countries around the world. Britain has occasionally prosecuted some Nigerian politicians for money laundering, but they were laundering the money in Britain, and it wasn't easy. And this is very rare.

[bolo]

The current indictment is here:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl

[IvanV]

The current indictment is here:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl

David Allen Green wrote a nice study of the legal papers served on the BBC. He points to lots of irrelevant bluster and a shortage of the specificities actually required to win a case. This is not the same thing, it is a grand jury indictment not a private case, and we don't expect to see what evidence they have actually got in an indictment. But we would look for allegations of specific actions.

As this CNN article notes, there is in general a lack of specific allegations in relation to specific drugs transactions. It notes that there are just 5 specific events recorded, such as a meeting FARC, that Maduro is asserted to have attended. Whether these events can be shown to be a conspiracy by Maduro to traffic drugs will depend upon what detailed specific evidence they have regarding these events, what happened at them, and what Maduro's role was in them. At the moment, it can't even put a date on the meeting with FARC, it is "around 2020", and several of the other specific events the dates are vaguer still. So the evidence might be a bit thin. The CNN article suggests that what witnesses can be persuaded to testify might be a relevant factor. Another specific event was when the Venezuelan military tried to smuggle over a tonne of drugs on a commercial flight to Paris and got found out. Apparently Maduro is quoted as saying, in public, they were foolish to try to move so much. And of course they were his mates, or else his puppeteers, and they didn't get prosecuted in Venezuela. But does that make him complicit?

The indictments on offences of possessing machine guns to me look ridiculous. How can you charge someone under US law for possessing machine guns in another country? But maybe US gun laws claim to apply everywhere in the world, when it comes to possessing such weapons. But we don't often see people turning up in the US and getting indicted for what they did, legally, back at home, when it has no effect in the US. The CNN article suggests that these charges may be serious enough in a US court to push Maduro to negotiate a plea. So maybe the US can prosecute extraterritorially for weapons possession once they've got you, absurd as that seems.

Noriega tried to plead sovereign immunity, but there was the inconvenient fact that while he was de facto ruler of Panama, he had given the official jobs to his stooges. Maduro will plead sovereign immunity, which is why the indictment recites stuff about him stealing an election. He stole it "legally": he had an election and the election council said he won it. But CNN suggests that what matters in a US court is that the US does not recognise him as sovereign. Then this NPR article notes the US previously had a bit legal trouble prosecuting Ismael Zambada, a Mexican drug cartel leader when he arrived in the US due to being abducted (by a rival drugs smuggler), rather than arriving there by due legal process. Of course that didn't seem to matter with Noriega, but the Zambada case is more recent.

[dyqik]

Even if Maduro can be shown to be very wealthy, well that's just normal in the context of leaders of many dodgy countries around the world.

I'm sure that Trump would love a legal precedent showing that someone who makes a lot of money while president of a country is therefore doing something illegal.