Venezuelan fishermen from the northwestern state of Falcón confessed to being more fearful of the socialist regime’s persecution than the U.S. military presence at sea, the outlet Runrunes reported Tuesday.
The fishermen explained to the outlet that members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) have allegedly ransacked their equipment. Some of the fishermen were then detained and accused of being drug traffickers as part of a purported regime “crackdown” against drug trafficking in the area.
Falcón state is home to the Paraguaná peninsula, one of the regions most affected by the collapse of socialism in Venezuela. The region is also home to the Paraguaná Refining Center, one of the world’s largest refining complexes — now barely functional and prone to constant oil spills as a result of decades’ worth of socialist mismanagement.
Runrunes reported that – given its strategic location in the Caribbean Sea and its proximity to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao – Falcón has become a hub for drug trafficking, oil smuggling, and migrant trafficking. According to a 2020 report from the non-government organization Transparencia Venezuela, the area is the center of operations of the Paraguaná Cartel, a roughly 100-member coalition of three families whose over three decades-long drug trafficking operations are akin to that of a drug cartel. In a March 2025 report, Transparencia Venezuela detailed that Falcón is exploited by criminal organizations to transport drug shipments to Aruba and Curacao.
Runrunes spoke with local Falcón fishermen who denounced that, since September, they have been victims of persecution, theft of work equipment, and subjected to arbitrary arrests by regime security forces, who are “attempting to portray them as drug traffickers.” The persecution campaign described by the outlet occurs amid the ongoing U.S. military actions in Caribbean International waters against drug cartels operating in the area, which has so far resulted in several drug-laden vessels neutralized through U.S. military precision strikes.
At press time, the latest known strike took place on Monday. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth explained that U.S. military forces attacked four drug-trafficking vessels, killing 14 terrorists. One person survived the attacks.
Runrunes reported that various fishing communities from the Paraguaná peninsula have denounced that regime security officials have visited their villages and ransacked their boats to present evidence of alleged drug trafficking ever since the U.S. military strikes against the drug-laden vessels started.
In recent weeks, the outlet stated, five fishermen were taken from their homes in communities in Paraguaná in the middle of the night and brought before the Public Prosecutor’s Office on “suspicion of drug trafficking.”
“Their families claim that these are false positives and that they have nothing to do with drug trafficking,” Runrunes said.
“The threat is here. We don’t see the gringos. But police and military are out there conducting combat exercises, arming the community, and carrying out procedures that end up involving us fishermen. And we have nothing to do with it,” a fisherman identified with the pseudonym “Francisco” told Runrunes on condition that his real name was withheld out of fear of reprisal from the socialist regime.
“Francisco” asserted to Runrunes that on September 7 — five days after President Donald Trump announced the first strike against a Venezuelan drug-laden vessel in international waters — members of the Bolivarian National Guard’s Anti-drug Commando stole four outboard motors used by fishermen to fish at sea every day. According to the man, a fisherman who noticed the seizure of the motors alerted the community.
Runrunes explained that on September 9, ZODI Falcón, a regional entity of the Bolivarian National Guard, published a video of a purported “security reinforcement procedure” at the Paraguaná Peninsula. The purported operation was given the name of “Operation Cacique Manaure,” a name that Runrunes pointed out is “not new,” as it was used by the regime in 2022 to allegedly dismantle criminal groups in Falcón.
The outlet reported that the Venezuelan military claimed to have allegedly dismantled a clandestine landing strip and an improvised dock, finding “four boats, four outboard motors, as well as 25 containers filled with 640 liters of fuel.” The purported security operation, Runrunes stated, coincided with the alleged “seizure” of 3,600 kilograms of drugs in Falcón in September.
“After the commotion in the United States over Venezuela, now they are labeling us as criminals. We are fishermen. But now we see trucks passing by at night, with those bright lights, and three days later, they find drugs in the mangroves. Boats can’t reach that area,” a local resident told Runrunes on condition of anonymity.
The Venezuelan outlet stressed that, for communities along the Falconian coast, the persecution does not come from the U.S. government, as regime officials “are looking for culprits on Falconian soil. To this end, troops have been deployed along the entire coast in what they call Operation Cacique Manaure.”
“On the one hand, there is the deployment of the U.S. naval fleet in international waters in the Caribbean, near the Venezuelan coast. On the other hand, the presence of these ships has led to fictitious police and security procedures on land, with illegal searches, arbitrary detentions, and losses due to the seizure of work equipment at sea,” Runrunes wrote.
“The people of Las Cumaraguas are tired of so much abuse. Uniformed officers come at night to take away humble people and fishermen. People who live from day to day, from fishing, with the sole aim of taking their money,” a woman identified as “Endrina” told the outlet.
Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has repeatedly claimed that President Donald Trump’s efforts to curb the flow of drugs entering the United States and the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean to fight drug cartels in the area is instead a pretense to stage an alleged “invasion” of Venezuela to oust him from power and steal Venezuela’s natural resources.
On Monday, Maduro claimed that his regime had allegedly dismantled three different “CIA terrorist operations” in Venezuelan territory. The dictator, actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges, did not present any evidence that could substantiate his accusations, and asserted that he will not give the United States any evidence on grounds that the last time his regime allegedly did, “they [the U.S.] simply went out and protected those people, we know that for a fact.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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