Crime Accusations Have Long Dogged Tareck El Aissami, Venezuela’s No. 2
In 2010, he told a Colombian television network that the minister, Tareck El Aissami, was a "friend," and
that one of Mr. El Aissami’s brothers would do "whatever favor I needed." More accusations against Mr. El Aissami, 42, came to light this week, but this time it was not a criminal making them, but the United States Treasury Department, which said that Mr. El Aissami was involved in narcotics rackets from Colombia to Mexico.
In the years after Mr. Makled, a fellow Venezuelan, bragged about his connection, Mr. El Aissami rose rapidly
through the ranks of Venezuela’s power structure, becoming the country’s vice president last month.
By the time Mr. El Aissami left the governorship to become vice president, the state was among the most dangerous
in the nation, according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a nongovernmental group that tracks crime.
The United States sanctions now suggest that Mr. El Aissami might not only have looked the
other way when it came to Venezuela’s rising crime, but played an active role in it.
While Mr. El Aissami said the new system would fight crime by bringing it under a national command, critics saw a political motivation: taking security out of the hands of opposition mayors
and governors who ran their own forces in places like Caracas, the capital.
The sanctions have now brought international scrutiny on Mr. El Aissami, the son of Middle Eastern immigrants
who went from being an unknown student leader to the country’s powerful interior and justice minister.
