Top defector tells of spying and mutiny in Venezuela

Bloomberg

Days after being named chief of Venezuela’s feared SEBIN intelligence agency last fall, General Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera was called in by President Nicolas Maduro and asked where the enemy was.
“I don’t understand the question, sir,” Figuera says he responded.
“I want a report every two hours of what the political opposition is doing,” Maduro replied, listing some of the 30 politicians whose whereabouts and activities were to be surveilled. Reports, he said, needed to be sent not only to him but to his wife, Cilia Flores, and to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. The monitoring involved spreadsheets with photos, mobile phone taps and round-the-clock shifts of on-the-ground four-agent teams observing movements and meetings.
Figuera, the most significant Venezuelan defector of the past two decades, is in the US offering details of Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian rule and the schemes by which he, his family and associates embezzle the proceeds of oil, gold and other national treasures as the once-wealthy nation of 30 million descends into chaos and starvation.
Over five hours of interviews with Bloomberg in a Miami hotel and a nearby sports bar, Figuera, a burly 55-year-old trained in Cuba and Belarus, contended that the Venezuelan intelligence services have infiltrated Colombia’s security apparatus.
With that penetration, early this year the Venezuelans tracked the movements of a key defector, Colonel Oswaldo Garcia Palomo, who was captured, tortured and interrogated after sneaking across the Colombian border to help organise a rebellion.
“A member of the Colombian intelligence service was in touch with one of ours and gave Palomo a telephone,” he said. “With that telephone they followed him.” Figuera contended that Palomo’s torture took place not at his SEBIN agency but at the DGCIM, military counterintelligence. Figuera said Palomo, who’s still in SEBIN prison, is a friend whose mistreatment horrified him.
Colombia’s presidency and defense ministry didn’t respond to written requests for comment.
Much of Figuera’s narrative surrounds his claim that the abuse, corruption and authoritarianism he encountered after he took up his top position shocked him. This has been met with skepticism by leaders of the opposition who note that Figuera spent a decade as deputy head of DGCIM before taking over SEBIN and that he certainly seemed fully integrated into the most brutal elements of the security apparatus before defecting.
Figuera addressed this, saying: “I share responsibility for Maduro’s stay in power, like any official who’s been part of this criminal enterprise. But if someone has evidence against me, I have no fear to face justice.”
Figuera’s status in the U.S. is temporary. Removed from a list of sanctioned Venezuelan officials upon defecting, he’s been granted a permit to stay but not to be a resident.
His wife, Barbara Reinefeld, who attended the second part of the interview, has a longer-term visa because she has a sister and a son living in the US. The couple are staying with family in Miami as they try to figure out what’s next, although Figuera says he wants only to return to his homeland as soon as possible, adding that he believes Maduro can’t last out the year.
A senior US official said that if Figuera wants to stay, he’ll have to apply for residency or asylum.