Venezuela fires 60-strong police anti-drugs squad

CARACAS- Venezuela is purging all 60 officers from its national police anti-drugs squad after accusations its agents mishandled or lost captured narcotics.

The move represents the latest mark against Venezuela's anti-narcotics drive since President Hugo Chavez broke ties with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Washington branded his government a failure in the war on drugs.

Luis Correa, head of the CONACUID national anti-drug agency, said the Interior Ministry had ordered all 60 officers in the CICPC national investigative police drugs unit replaced.

"There had been accusations of drugs lost in the command posts, there were accusations from other organisations that the amount of drugs reported were not the same as the amount captured; it was an accumulation of things," Correa said.

"They ordered a complete clean-up of the CICPC anti-drugs squad; that means the removal from the director down to the last officer," he said.

Correa said the measure came after prosecutors detained 14 of the unit's officers accused of transporting 400kg of captured drugs without permission. Soldiers stopped the agents at a roadblock in southern Bolivar State.

Chavez, a socialist ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, suspended cooperation with the DEA last year after accusing its agents of spying on his government. The former soldier often charges Washington with trying to overthrow him.

US officials later revoked the US visas of three Venezuelan military officers suspected of involvement in narcotics trafficking and put Venezuela alongside Burma on the list of countries failing to help in the war on drugs.

The drugs fracas was the latest to test ties between the United States and the world's No 5 oil exporter. US officials dismiss Chavez's plot charges, but portray him as a would-be dictator threatening regional stability.

Correa said Venezuela and US officials had agreed to sign a new cooperation deal involving the DEA and that an accord would be completed after Washington had authorized the final draft.

Venezuela wanted a co-operation deal that would restrict DEA agents from carrying out unsupervised operations in Venezuela.

"This morning they guaranteed me that in 48 hours they would be getting the letter from Washington to let this agreement go into play," he said.

Venezuela is a key conduit for cocaine from neighboring Colombia through the Caribbean to Europe and the United States. Traffickers use speedboats to ship drugs from its remote eastern coastline to nearby islands or ocean-bound vessels.

- REUTERS