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Report: Chevron to Add New Oil Drilling Rigs in Venezuela Following Biden Sanctions Relief

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California-based oil company Chevron is planning to boost its oil production in Venezuela by adding at least two new oil rigs in the country, Reuters reported Monday.

The proposed rigs would reportedly add some 65,000 barrels per day (bdp) as part of the company’s goals of increasing its Venezuelan oil output to 200,000 bdp by the end of 2024.

The plan marks Chevron’s first major drilling campaign in Venezuela since the Biden administration eased oil sanctions on the socialist regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro in November. The Biden administration granted the first license issued to import Venezuelan oil into American markets to Chevron.

The new oil rigs that Chevron’s plans reportedly call for would help Venezuela recover its lost crude oil production output, left in near ruins after two decades of socialism. It would also expedite Chevron’s recovery of $3 billion in unpaid dividends and debts from its Venezuelan ventures.

The Biden administration’s license to Chevron has allowed Venezuela to boost its oil production and shipments throughout 2023.

Reuters’ report, which cites three anonymous sources familiar with the matter, stated that Chevron’s joint ventures with Venezuela’s state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company now produce some 135,000 bpd and have exported an average of 124,000 bpd to the United States in 2023.

According to independent estimates and shipping data reviewed by Reuters, Venezuela has now neared the oil output levels it had before 2019, when the administration of former President Donald Trump sanctioned PDVSA to punish the Maduro regime for years of human rights atrocities committed against its own people, banning the United States from buying Venezuelan oil.

Chevron’s plans, according to Reuters, would initially see the installation of equipment on the Petroindependencia project located in Venezuela’s main oil production region, the Orinoco Belt. Chevron also plans two additional joint ventures, one in the Belt’s Petropiar project and another in Petroboscan located near Lake Maracaibo — a lake that has been left severely contaminated due to constant oil spills caused by socialist mismanagement.

One of the sources told Reuters that the idea is to “drill two wells per month at the Orinoco [Belt].”

Reuters’ report continues by stating that Chevron’s aims of reaching 200,000 bpd by the end of 2024 could help Venezuela output 1 million bdp, an amount higher than 2023’s current average of 785,000 bpd but still short from the 2 million that socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro promised in 2022.

In 1998, before the election of late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution’s rise to power, Venezuela was able to output an average of 3.5 million bpd.

Chevron told Reuters that it “continues to conduct business in compliance with laws and regulations, as well as the sanctions framework provided by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).”

Chevron’s drilling plans, according to the report, would not require the United States to issue new licenses or approvals, as the areas involved by the proposal are already included in the license granted by the Biden administration in November.

The sources, however, told Reuters that the plans call for an oilfield supplier able to provide Chevron with 1,000-1,5000 horsepower rigs, which, given Venezuela’s current environment, is a difficult task, as the current licenses granted to U.S. oil service providers in Venezuela only allows them to keep existing assets and employees in the country, and require authorization to import new equipment or to take contracts with PDVSA or its joint ventures.

As a result, Reuters explained, Chevron either must “hire local contractors, whose access to modern equipment is limited, or await a modification to the U.S. oilfield firms’ licenses.”

Another source told Reuters that Chevron’s experience in this project is expected to serve as a benchmark for other foreign oil companies in joint ventures with PDVSA that have begun early planning for possible drilling campaigns.

The Biden administration has been reportedly holding negotiations with the Maduro regime throughout 2023, offering a temporary lifting of oil sanctions in exchange for “free and fair” presidential elections in 2024.

Maduro, however, has repeatedly insisted that there will be no “free and fair” elections in Venezuela unless all sanctions imposed on the rogue socialist regime and its officials are lifted. The Maduro regime has dubbed this demand as “sanctions-free fair elections.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Mexican Pop Star Peso Pluma Postpones Tijuana Show After Death Threats from Drug Cartel

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Mexican pop star Peso Pluma has postponed his show in Tijuana after the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel began posting ominous banners around the area threatening his life.

Pluma, 24, whose real name is Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija, is a popular “Narcocorrido” singer, or an artist whose work glorifies drug cartels in songs often labeled “narco ballads.” Many of Pluma’s songs, for instance, have celebrated drug cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Still, his narco ballads do not sit well equally with all cartels, if the banners supposedly signed by Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación” (CJNG) are any evidence.

On Thursday, Pluma’s record label, Doble P Records, told fans that his Oct. 14 show in Tijuana has been canceled out of an abundance of caution, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Authorities arrested a man in Tijuana for hanging banners threatening Pluma’s safety with a message reading in Spanish, “This is for you, Peso Pluma. Refrain from appearing this October 14. Because it will be your last presentation.”

It was signed CJNG, authorities reported.

Several other similar banners also appeared in the town just south of the U.S. border between California and Mexico.

Pluma has postponed shows in Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Birmingham, according to The Messenger.

Whatever the seriousness of the threats, the municipal president of Tijuana, Montserrat Caballero Ramírez, had little sympathy for Pluma.

“Singers like Peso Pluma glorifies crime, so there are certain groups that get upset and unfortunately those who suffer the consequences are the citizens who want to attend their concerts and then are put at risk. In the next few days we will determine whether the concert goes ahead or not,” she said, according to Billboard.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston

Cuellar: We’re Not Doing Enough to Stop Wave of Migrants Crossing Latin America, Might Need ‘Pressure’ on Countries

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On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) stated that there are massive numbers of migrants crossing the Darién Gap “and we’re not doing enough to stop them at their 20-yard line, and everything is being done here at the 1-yard line called the U.S.-Mexico border.” Cuellar also said that if the U.S. has to pressure other nations in Latin America to do more to stop migration from coming to the U.S., it needs to and wondered, “What happened to those regional border processing centers that we were supposed to set up in Panama and Colombia?”

Cuellar said, “Look, everybody talks about the border. You can send more personnel. You can do certain things. But that’s playing defense on the 1-yard line. If we don’t play defense on their 20-yard line and extend it and have repercussions at the border also, people are going to come in. … Look what’s happened at the Darién Gap. There are large numbers, and we’re not doing enough to stop them at their 20-yard line, and everything is being done here at the 1-yard line called the U.S.-Mexico border.”

He added, “First of all, one of the things we need to do is give authorities to Homeland where they can do the work outside the U.S. border. And that means a lot, just think about the authorities that Homeland does. And then working with Mexico and working with Guatemala, Panama, and Colombia. What happened to those regional border processing centers that we were supposed to set up in Panama and Colombia? And if we don’t, all they’re going to do is just keep coming over here. … That’s what we need to do is we’ve got to work with those countries, and if we need to put a little pressure on Mexico and the other countries to work with us, let’s go ahead and do that and get the job done. I know some of our DHS officials in headquarters, because I talked to them, they are going down to Mexico, the U.S. consulate and the embassy is talking to the Mexicans to stop those people from getting on the trains to come over here. They’ve got to do a lot more.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Venezuela: Maduro Regime Shuts Down Gang-Run Prison Featuring Casino, Zoo

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CARACAS, Venezuela — The socialist regime of narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro, in a surprising move, stormed the country’s infamous gang-run Tocorón prison on Wednesday as part of a crackdown on the Tren de Aragua (“Aragua Train”), Venezuela’s largest known criminal organization.

The prison, which up until this week served as Tren de Aragua’s main “headquarters,” reportedly hosted its own zoo, baseball field, bars, a casino, a nightclub, a bank, a pool, a cryptocurrency farm, and playgrounds. The raid and shutdown of Tocorón follows years of inaction of the socialist regime against the criminal “mega-gang.”

“The Bolivarian Government informs that the Cacique Guaicaipuro Liberation Operation has been underway since the early hours of the morning. Its objective is to dismantle and put an end to organized crime gangs and other criminal networks operating from the Tocorón Penitentiary, to the detriment of the tranquility of the Venezuelan people,” an official statement from the Maduro regime published on Wednesday read.

The socialist regime reportedly deployed some 11,000 members of its security forces to raid the penitentiary center, seizing their extensive firearms arsenal and transfering all inmates spread across other prisons in the country.

Venezuelan Justice Minister Remigio Ceballos provided vague information on the operation on Thursday through the country’s state-owned media apparatus, informing that one member of the Bolivarian National Guard died during the operation and adding that four unspecified security agents were detained for their involvement with the criminal gang.

“We have prevented a massive escape and we have controlled all those deprived of liberty [a term used by the socialist regime to refer to prison inmates] and we have also captured some people with weapons,” Ceballos said.

“We have more than 60 individuals belonging to a large criminal gang that is part of structures that moved in all parts of the country,” he continued. “That is, we are obtaining high-level information of a criminalistic nature that will provide us with matters of interest for the future captures that we are going to make.”

Ceballos did not provide any further details.

While the entrances of the prison were guarded by the Bolivarian National Guard, the Venezuelan armed forces had no say on the inner workings of Tocorón. The prison was run by the Tren de Aragua, which is believed to be Venezuela’s biggest criminal organization. Established in 2014, the gang’s criminal activities range from homicide, theft, extortion, contraband, and kidnapping to drug, human, and arms trafficking. The U.S. Department of State has accused both the Tren de Aragua and the Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN) terrorist organization of operating sex trafficking networks in Colombia’s Norte de Santander department.

In recent years, the Tren de Aragua has spread beyond Venezuelan borders, using the same routes and methods employed by millions of Venezuelan migrants that have fled from socialism. The criminal organization has reportedly been succesful in exporting its criminal activities and modus operandi as a sort of “franchise” to other countries in the region while providing “logistical support” from within Venezuela. As a result, the Tren de Aragua now has a confirmed presence in Colombia, Brasil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and “possibly” in the United States, according to Venezuelan Journalist Ronna Rísquez, who published a book in February on the criminal organization.”

The criminal organization is led by Héctor “the Child” Guerrero Flores. Guerrero, a man with an extensive criminal record, led the organization from inside Tocorón as its pran, a slang-term and/or title given to the topmost leader of a Venezuelan prison. 

Pran is also an acronym for Preso Rematado Asesino Nato, which loosely translates to “Finished-off, Natural-Born Killer Prisoner.”

A pran rules over a prison facility through a sort of personal fiefdom system commonly known as a pranato (“Pranate”), charging inmates a pre-established amount — either biweekly or monthly — that goes towards their “cause.”

The income received from “the cause” is often used to transform the prison’s insides into the pran and his gang’s own inner enclaves, commissioning the construction of facilities and amenities such as pools, bars, clubs, and even parallel private banking offices — all while the socialist regime’s armed forces provide exterior security to the prison. A pran and his activities inside Venezuela’s prison centers often count with the “blessing” of the socialist Maduro regime, tacit or otherwise. The prans and pranate system have also built their own extensive lexicon. 

Guerrero’s current whereabouts remain unknown, as he was reportedly not present in the prison at the time of the raid. The prison also featured access tunnels that connected the facility with the nearby Lake Valencia, which inmates could use to come and go from the prison at their leisure, with boats located at the lake for further transportation.

It remains unclear what — after so many years of public knowledge regarding Tocorón — prompted the Maduro regime to storm and shut down the prison this week.

The Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP), a non-government organization, claimed to CNN en Español on Thursday that the raid on Tocorón came after Guerrero and other prison leaders negotiated with the Maduro regime to hand over the facility.

According to the NGO, Guerrero, along with his closest allies, allegedly left Tocorón days before the raid occurred, not informing the inmates of what was going to occur. The NGO also claims that many of the inmates could have left through tunnels built in the prisons and later “canoed themselves in the mountains near Tocorón.”

While the Maduro regime has boasted that “Tocorón is over,” Rísquez asserts that the shutdown of the prison does not mean the dismantlement of Tren de Aragua.

“We have seen how the government of President Nicolás Maduro is seeking legitimacy,” Rísquez told the Venezuelan news website Efecto Cocuyo on Thursday. “The bad image that the Tren de Aragua was giving in the region was tarnishing it.”

Rísquez, much like the Venezuelan Prison Observatory, suggested that the shutdown of the prison came after negotiations between the gang leadership and the socialist regime.

“There was no way to enter the Tocorón prison by force without this generating a massacre. It was necessary to talk and reach agreements with the prisoners,” she explained.

“The issue of entering and retaking the prison was a debt owed by the authorities to the country,” she continued. “The departure from the prison is going to have an impact on the [Tren de Aragua], because they lost their base of operations. But this does not imply a demobilization of the organization.”

In August, Rísquez told the outlet Dialogo Americas that socialist dictator Maduro’s then-inaction against the gang was “due to the fact that the Tren de Aragua is a kind of armed wing of his regime.”

“The regime, not only Maduro’s but also [late socialist dictator Hugo] Chávez’s, quickly understood that it could have these types of organizations like collectives or mega-gangs at its service, and it uses them for whatever it needs,” she said.

Rísquez also said that the “pranate” system remains present in at least eight other prison facilities in Venezuela and that it is something that the Maduro regime is aware of, but has not wanted to recognize. 

“The government says it did not know there were weapons in Tocorón,” Rísquez said. “That is not possible because for many years it was controlled by pranes.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Haitian Gang Boss ‘Barbecue’ Calls for Revolution Against What’s Left of Government

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Haitian gang boss Jimmy “Barbecue’ Cherizier hit the streets on Tuesday to call for an armed revolution against the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

“Our fight will be with weapons,” he assured the media.

Reuters observed Cherizier marching through the streets with a squad of heavily armed goons. He vowed that demonstrations would be held daily in “all working-class neighborhoods” against Henry’s administration, which he deemed illegitimate.

Cherizier rejected Henry’s call for international assistance to defeat the gangs and stabilize Haiti. He warned other countries to stay out of Haiti while he works on overthrowing the government.

“The international community cannot continue to do this in Haiti. If the international community has nothing to do with (President Jovenel Moise’s) death, they must not support Ariel Henry,” he told Reuters.

Moise was assassinated in his home in July 2021 by a squad of gunmen. Haiti was thrown into even more chaos than usual by his death, and Henry stepped in to fill the power vacuum. Haiti has not had a president since.

Cherizier is not alone in questioning the legitimacy of Henry’s rule, since he has not stood for an election yet. Haiti’s last elected officials departed in January 2023 as their terms expired.

Members of “G9 and Family” protect the leader Jimmy Chérizier, right, better known as Barbecue, during a protest against Haitian Prime Minister in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

In February, Henry created a “transition council” that was supposed to pave the way for the first elections since Moise’s murder. No date has been set for elections as of September 2023. 

One of the many reasons other countries, including the United States, have been reluctant to commit ground forces to restore order in Haiti is that so much of the populace regards Henry as illegitimate, and might turn against their would-be foreign saviors because they would accuse foreign peacekeepers of propping up Henry’s rule. 

Cherizier made that threat explicit on Tuesday.

“Every Ghetto will be on the streets every day, and we have nothing to hide from the whole world. They all know that we have weapons. Not only do we mobilize to fight Ariel Henry, we also mobilize the people,” he said.

Haitians may not support Henry, but they do not much care for anarchic rule by gang lords, either. A vigilante movement called “Bwa Kale” (a phrase that means “peeled wood,” a euphemism for street justice) has risen up against the gangs and killed a number of suspected gang members.

The gangs responded with brutal violence, as in August, when they opened fire on a church group that marched through the streets with clubs and machetes after their pastor told them their faith made them bulletproof. They quickly discovered that they were not.

Cherizier, widely regarded as the most powerful of Haiti’s crime lords, is a former police officer who was allegedly involved with brutal gang violence long before he lost his badge. He was slapped with human rights sanctions by the U.N. Security Council in October 2022.

Cherizier leads a consortium of violent gangs called the “G9 Family and Allies,” a name chosen as a mockery of legitimate international organizations like the G7 and G20. Cherizier’s organization notoriously took control of Haiti’s vital fuel terminal in September 2022, holding the entire island’s fuel supply hostage for two months and inflicting unimaginable suffering on its already impoverished people.

File/Jimmy Cherizier, aka Barbecue, a former policeman who leads the G9 gang coalition, visits with friends as they play a game of dominoes in the Cite Soleil shantytown of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

The island remains wracked by violence, poverty, disease, and famine, which is spreading because Cherizier and his fellow gang lords are blockading the roads needed for food distribution.

The reason Cherizier takes pains to mourn Moise in his public statements is not because he longs for legitimate representative government to return to Haiti, but because Moise was believed to be a patron and ally to the G9 gangs. The criminal organization originally presented itself as a volunteer militia and ballot harvesting operation, and Moise allegedly supplied them with cash and weapons.

After years of the American, Canadian, and Caribbean governments awkwardly eyeballing each other and hoping someone else would take point on the Haitian peacekeeping operation demanded by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Kenya stepped forward in July and announced it would send a thousand police officers to the island.

The Miami Herald reported in September that Biden administration officials have been “circling the globe” in a frantic effort to recruit other countries to back Kenya up with a multinational peacekeeping force.

SHOCK VIDEO: Nearly 400 People Rescued from “Unsafe, Overloaded” Haitian Sailboat

U.S. Coast Guard District 7

Those efforts have been largely unsuccessful, in part because no one will commit troops until the U.N. Security Council authorizes a military intervention, and resolutions to that effect have been blocked by Russia and China.

Kenya’s offer turned out to have a good deal of fine print, including some confusion about exactly what its forces would do after arriving in Haiti. On Wednesday, Kenyan President William Ruto established formal diplomatic relations with Haiti and said he still plans to send Kenyan personnel to the island – but only if the U.N. officially endorses the mission and other nations commit troops as well.

“As the leading nation in the U.N.-backed security mission in Haiti, we are committed to deploying a specialized team to comprehensively assess the situation and formulate actionable strategies that will lead to long-term solutions,” Ruto said on Wednesday.

“Kenya is ready to pay its part in full and join with a coalition of other nations of good will, and there are many, as a good friend and true sibling of Haiti,” he reiterated in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

“We urge the United Nations to urgently deliver an appropriate framework to facilitate the deployment of a multinational security support as part of a holistic response to Haiti’s challenge,” he said.

“As we mobilize to show up for Ukraine, and countries that have experienced the devastating impact of climate shocks including Libya, Morocco and Hawaii, we must not leave Haiti behind,” he declared.

Haiti specialist Diego Da Rin of the International Crisis Group told the UK Guardian on Thursday that peacekeepers might arrive in Haiti by November or December if the U.N. passes the desired resolution.

“We expect a force of around 2,000 police officers, maybe with some military backup units. It won’t be as huge as previous armed interventions,” he said.

The Guardian found little enthusiasm for the prospective peacekeeping operation on the streets of Haiti, where residents doubted a small force of foreign police officers would make much of a difference until Haiti had a functional and reasonably honest government.

“One of the reasons the gangs are powerful today is because the state authorities at the highest echelons and the police hierarchy are colluding with bandits. In order to improve the security situation, the country has to be led,” human rights activist Pierre Esperance told the Guardian.

Another problem is that Kenya’s police force has been sharply criticized for its own human rights violations, including beating and killing demonstrators from impoverished neighborhoods who protested higher costs of living.

The Guardian noted in August that Kenyan peacekeepers have proven ineffective in deployments like Somalia, where the Kenyans were accused of corruption for supporting smuggling rings. 

“With armed groups extorting much of Haiti’s business and corruption penetrating the highest levels of politics and policing, any external force is likely to become entangled in Haiti’s criminal economy,” the Guardian cautioned.