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For at least 10 years there have been reports of female trafficking from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago, a crime that has worsened with the country’s economic crisis. In 2018 alone, there were 16 unresolved complaints in the hands of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The epicenter of the business is in Güiria, in the state of Sucre, with the involvement of Venezuelan police and immigration authorities. In the female trafficking chain, ethics are scarce and dollars are abundant.
Members of a female trafficking network hijacked the two boats that left Güiria, in the state of Sucre, in eastern Venezuela, on April 23 and May 16, according to the story that quickly spread among the residents. There was no need for an official version. Everyone there knows that the women are “for sale” and that they cost USD 300 each.
The facts then supported the theory that spread from mouth to mouth: there were no objects floating in the sea, no bodies. No sign of death. Instead, there are 60 families who insist that their relatives have been kidnapped and demand a search.
On April 23, the peñero, small boat, “José Jhonnalys” was lost. Of the 35 people on board, only 8 were found alive, along with the body of a 16-year-old girl who appeared to have drowned. Patricia (*) decided to go to Trinidad and Tobago for the second time – she had gone the year before. She asked for a ride from Noel Tortolero, who was known locally as “Noelito” and for transferring women to Trinidad and Tobago.
She had known him for years and assumed that she was not in danger. It was not the first time they had taken her for free, and on April 23 she saw the usual things: that the girls, mostly underage, were photographed before departure. It was dark when she went aboard, and she could not remember the faces of the people who were on the boat that day. To her they were simply more women who were going to the island. As usual.
The engine sputtered as they left Güiria, but they continued towards Trinidad. When they arrived at the Isla de Patos it finally shut down, and the boat began to sink. Everyone clung to the boat until it turned over and there was no choice but to surrender to the sea. Some climbed onto plastic gasoline containers, and others were supported by the overturned boat, which remained afloat.
Patricia saw one of her neighbors from Güiria take off her clothes and start swimming. The woman asked her to keep her company, so as not to vanish in the water alone. They saw a mountain and had faith that they could get somewhere to hold on to. Then they arrived. They were on a rock for a day and a half.
For a moment they thought they were spotted by rescuers when they saw a drone approach the area where the boat was wrecked. Then a boat approached and moved away. They could not see whether any others were rescued. They shouted for help, but no one saw them. The ship continued on to Trinidad and Tobago.
“They told me that my daughter was crying and did not want to get on the boat. She told them that her mother would pay the debt.”
After a day and a half sitting on a rock, they were finally rescued by fishermen from Güiria who had searched endlessly to find people in the water. After staying together during the ill-fated voyage, the two women now avoid talking to each other and remain in the shelter of their homes. They know that they were saved from the water, and that they may not be lucky enough to be saved by their village again.
The survivors of the first boat have recognized photos of other teenagers who were traveling along the illegal route. A 17-year-old girl from Carúpano left home saying she would be on vacation in San Cristóbal with a friend. She called her mother twice from an unknown telephone number, telling her that she wanted to return, but that she had to take care of a USD 200 debt. “She told me not to worry, that she was looking for a way home,” says her mother, who wants to keep her identity a secret.
When her daughter stopped communicating with her, she filed a report with the authorities. The calls made by the teenager were not from Táchira, but from Güiria. Her photo was identified by some of the survivors of the first wrecked boat. “They told me that my daughter was crying and did not want to get on the boat. She told them that her mother would pay the debt. Her friend was sitting on her legs in the boat,” the woman says.
Town under suspicion
The Ana María boat disappeared with 33 people aboard only 24 days after this shipwreck,. There are no traces of this boat. This week the Minister of National Security of Trinidad and Tobago, Stuart Young, confirmed that Alberto Abreu, the alleged captain of this second vessel, has a criminal record for human trafficking.
Abreu is, to date, the only person who has appeared, which this contributes to the suspicion that the people aboard the Ana María may have been kidnapped, but since he was rescued he has been on the run. “The individual who was taken to Granada turned out to have a criminal record and was engaged in human trafficking. As soon as that was discovered, this individual left the hospital in Grenada,” explained the minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
In Güiria, it is known that the women spend the night in the Hotel Plaza before being taken to the island. They all say this as soon as anyone sets foot in the village. They know that simply capturing a woman and delivering her to the trafficking network yields a net profit of USD 300; that some know where they are going and others do not; that the officials of the Administrative Service for Immigration and Immigration Servicio Administrativo de Inmigración y Extranjería, SAIME stamp passports even though the travelers are absent, and that each vessel leaving the port must pay a quota in dollars to each branch of law enforcement.
They all leave Venezuela legally and officially. This is nothing new in Güiria nor for the Prosecutor’s Office. Nor is it unusual for the immigration authorities in Trinidad and Tobago.
Jehyson Gutiérrez is the older brother of 19-year old Kelly Zambrano who disappeared in the second boat. The girl, who is originally from Rubio, in the state of Táchira, could not afford to continue studying for her psychology degree. A friend invited her to emigrate to Trinidad and Tobago to raise money in foreign currency to help alleviate the hyperinflation that exists in Venezuela. To help her, she paid for the fare on the illegal route from Güiria, which costs $200, with the same people who took her friend across.
Zambrano traveled from Táchira to the eastern part of the country. She stayed at the Hotel Plaza under the care of a man named Héctor Torres, who her friend already knew because he coordinated the trip that took her out of Venezuela. Zambrano disappeared in the Ana María and her fate is unknown.
Gutiérrez was persecuted and threatened when he arrived in Güiria tracing his sister’s path. He states that he spoke one day with the mayor of the town, Ender Charles. He got in the car and Charles’s security team immediately noticed a car was following them. The young man slept that day in the custody of the mayor’s bodyguards.
Then several other men approached him. “They told me to leave because the same thing that happened to my sister would happen to me. They told me they had killed her and that I had to go because it was affecting their business. They walked away but I asked people if they knew them. The Civil Protection office told me that both men worked for them,” he says.
He also says that a prosecutor in Carúpano recommended that he not talk to anyone about Güiria because everyone is a suspect.
Open file
Female sex trafficking has been investigated in the Public Ministry in the past decade. Last year, a former prosecutor, who preferred to keep her name confidential for this report, said that 16 cases remained open for investigation. In all of them there were at least five victims involved. The routes taken by the women depart from Güiria, Tucupita, or Margarita.
Two former prosecutors interviewed by Armando.info confirm that cases of female trafficking in women increased between 2014 and 2016. The country’s socioeconomic crisis has increased all types of trafficking. Crabs, bananas, cheese, honey, copper, and even women were sent as merchandise from Venezuela to the island.
During the term of Luisa Ortega Díaz, representatives from the Public Ministry held a meeting with the embassy of Trinidad and Tobago in Caracas and reached a simple and sad conclusion: there were no resources on the island to do investigations. And in Venezuela, there was no interest. Women continue to be merchandise.
“The main problem that we could not overcome was that immigration in Güiria works manually and there was no way for SAIME to modernize the system. When we asked who departed on a certain vessel, there were no records,” the source explains.
The National Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Command Comando Nacional Antiextorsión y Secuestro, Conas of the Venezuelan Armed Forces supported the Public Ministry in the investigation with the triangulation of telephone calls in 2014 and 2018. Trafficking allegations multiplied during those years. These inquiries showed that police and SAIME officials were involved and there they had relationships with the ones who transported the women. There were arrests, releases, and people who escaped. Sometimes the cases were linked, other times they were not. There are several networks.
The most emblematic case was that of Detzy del Valle Padrón. Since 2009, there have been reports of women being used as sex slaves in Trinidad and Tobago. Detzy’s partner worked in immigration in Trinidad and Tobago and had up to nine complaints against him. In each one, at least two women accused him and his accomplices of being part of the crime.
In 2014, Padrón was arrested while leaving Margarita with one more victim. A fight between the two women triggered alerts from the authorities. A few months later, the judge in the case changed Detzy del Valle’s prison for no reason and she escaped. She is still free.
This week, the Public Prosecutor’s Office notified that four men and one woman were detained because of their alleged connection to a sex trafficking network. They claim that they were detained on May 2 at the military checkpoint in the town of Bohordal, Cajigal municipality, in the state of Sucre. They were on the way to Güiria in a car with two women and three teenagers. Two of the minors were accompanied by their representatives, but one was traveling alone.
At the Salado river the National Guard detained two men, who were allegedly planning the departure of a small boat with these people to Trinidad and Tobago. None of the detainees appear to be among those involved in the disappearance of the first two vessels.
Warnings ignored
Last year a wave of Venezuelans detained in maximum-security prisons in Trinidad and Tobago showed how desperately Venezuelans are trying escape the crisis. While attention has focused on travelers to Andean countries, in other areas of Venezuela there were coyotes taking illegal migrants through the waters of the Orinoco Delta and Güiria for a price USD 100.
The Venezuelans who were stopped for being illegal were not deported but imprisoned and forced to pay bail of up to USD 1,500.
The investigation by ArmandoInfo revealed that many female detainees reported as abducted were victims of trafficking. None of them were heard. According to their relatives, they were not treated as victims but as illegal immigrants.
From the Foreign Policy Commission, deputy Carlos Valero documented these complaints and took them to the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago in Caracas. Relatives of the detainees also went to the Chancellery, but there was no response in any of these cases.
At the beginning of last year, two airplanes arrived in Venezuela with deported Venezuelans, who had been previously detained on the island for months because they were undocumented. In view of the massive deportation, the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) reminded officials in Trinidad and Tobago that they are obligated to comply with the 1951 Refugee Convention which establishes the non-repatriation or expulsion of persons who require international protection, regardless of how they entered national territory.
Picture: Some Venezuelan women who had been detained for being illegal immigrants have stated that they were kidnapped and trafficked for sex. In Trinidad and Tobago their complaints have not been heard.
Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who signed a joint gas exploitation agreement with Venezuela in March of 2017 to assign them to Petrocaribe, responded emphatically to the urging by UNHCR: “We can not and will not allow UN spokespersons to turn us into a refugee camp.”
Some Venezuelan women who had been detained for being illegal immigrants have stated that they were kidnapped and trafficked for sex. In Trinidad and Tobago their complaints have not been heard. 
Some Venezuelan women who had been detained for being illegal immigrants have stated that they were kidnapped and trafficked for sex. In Trinidad and Tobago their complaints have not been heard.
The recent disappearances caused the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to demand the development of search mechanisms with a single procedure to facilitate the filing of claims, and if appropriate, proceed with the repatriation and delivery of remains.
Commissioner Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva, rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants of the IACHR, stated: “This tragic shipwreck in the Caribbean Sea and the disappearances of the people aboard the vessel are yet another example of the level of desperation that Venezuelans face on a daily basis, who for various reasons are forced to leave their homes and face extreme dangers during their journey to other countries in order to survive.
After a year of complaints and in the midst of
this scandal involving the missing Venezuelan women, Trinidad and Tobago
decided to legalize the arriving Venezuelans in a registry starting May 31
until June 14, so they can work on the island for a few months.
(*) Name changed to protect the victim
