Ex-Venezuelan spy chief Carvajal is extradited from Spain to US on drug trafficking charges

By ARITZ PARRA
Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Venezuela’s former spy chief, retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, is being extradited from Spain to New York to face drug trafficking charges. A person at Spain’s National Court with knowledge of the extradition confirmed to The Associated Press that Carvajal, a retired major general, had left the country. According to his U.S. lawyer, Carvajal is expected to land in New York later on Wednesday. For more than a decade, he advised the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez before breaking with his successor, Nicolás Maduro. He had been fighting extradition since his arrest in April 2019. Prosecutors in New York allege that Carvajal used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 12,300 pounds of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006.