MADRID: Venezuela’s longtime spy chief was arrested Friday in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a US drug warrant a few weeks after he threw his support behind opponents of President Nicolas Maduro.
The arrest of retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, who for more than a decade advised the late leader Hugo Chávez, was celebrated by US law enforcement officials who watched helplessly as the spymaster slipped from their grips five years ago when he was picked up in Aruba on the same New York indictment used to order Friday’s arrest.
But some analysts said his surprise detention might have a chilling effect on Venezuela’s opposition.
The opposition saw Carvajal’s criticism of Venezuela’s socialist government as a stimulus to prod other military figures to defect, but the country’s armed forces have remained largely loyal to current Maduro.
Prosecutors in New York alleged Carvajal used his high office to coordinate the smuggling of approximately 5,600 kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico in 2006, according to the indictment.
A spokeswoman with Spain’s National Court, which handles extradition cases, said that Carvajal would testify Saturday before a judge in Madrid. He can either accept the extradition to the United States or fight it before the court, explained the official, who wasn’t authorized to be identified by name in media reports.
Global News 
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