# Venezuela's Criminal Economy Under Chávez and Maduro

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2118473749968060711
- Source account: [@InSightCrime_es](https://x.com/InSightCrime_es)
- Source language: English
- Duration: 0:41
- Published: 2026-11-06
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro) Venezuela shares a border with the world's biggest cocaine producer, Colombia.

[0:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro?t=5) Drugs flow from there through the country.

[0:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro?t=8) Gold and rare earth mines in Venezuela are illegally exploited by guerrillas and criminal bands.

[0:14](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro?t=14) But it was Hugo Chávez, the founding father of Venezuela's socialist revolution, who created the conditions for the hybrid state to flourish from its God-given assets.

[0:23](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro?t=23) Chávez allowed the military and the state to benefit from Venezuela's criminal economies.

[0:28](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/4MGBQgbxzcUD/en/venezuela-s-criminal-economy-under-ch%C3%A1vez-and-maduro?t=28) Then Maduro expanded and institutionalized the system, installing and fermenting key figures in the system built around the drug trade, illegal mining, prison gangs, and state corruption.