By Angelina Newsom:
A severe crisis has hit Venezuela hard in the years since the death of their infamous President, Hugo Chavez. The country has remained in the news not only for its widespread poverty, but also for whistleblower allegations that a Venezuelan embassy in Iraq sold passports to Middle Eastern citizens with possible ties to terrorism.
The Venezuelan government has gone bankrupt. This has directly impacted the passport process for those Venezuelan citizens who are trying to obtain one. Since the crises, there are only two passport machines that are operational in the country and no money to purchase enough of the materials needed to produce passports. This has left many citizens who want to leave the country stranded. It has also created a black market for those with access to passport making materials, who have marked up passports to outrageous prices. This also affects those Venezuelan citizens who are currently living in the United States. According to them, not having an updated passport will hinder them from securing employment or conducting other business within the United States. This could cause more unemployment among immigrants in the United States and the need for more resources for those individuals.
The amount of Venezuelans attempting to secure asylum in the United States has also shot up dramatically. This has the potential to add to the burden of the already out of control situation with undocumented immigrants in the country.
It was recently reported that a whistleblower by the name of Misael Lopez came forward with information regarding the sale of passports to people with possible ties to terrorism. Lopez was a legal advisor at the Venezuelan embassy in Iraq. According to him, he was introduced to the lucrative practice of selling passports to the highest bidder on his first day on the job. An official handed him an envelope full of passports and informed him that its contents were worth one million U.S. dollars.
Lopez also met an Iraqi woman who was employed at the embassy who told him that she made a lot of money selling the passports and he could as well. As he began to look further into the operation, Lopez stumbled upon a list of Arabic names that corresponded with Venezuelan passports that had been issued. In a publicly available database, however, those passport numbers are registered to people with Hispanic names and not the Arabic names that Lopez claimed he had seen. He also says that he tried going to his government with this information, but they did nothing about it. When he felt that he had exhausted every channel available to him with no success, he reached out to the United States.
Of course, the Venezuelan government denied any knowledge of this. Lopez was let go and investigated for sharing secret information. This is very troubling to say the least. The socialist climate in Venezuela has caused the country to drive itself into the depths of poverty. Although the United States and Venezuela have had a tense relationship, it’s reprehensible to think that there is even a slight possibility that the country would knowingly aid terrorists. It’s also not the first time Venezuela has been linked to providing documents that could possibly support terrorism. The country officially denies such dealings.
Angelina Newsom is an OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army Veteran. She has ten years experience in the military, including a deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She studies Criminal Justice and is still active within the military community.
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