A US indictment claims deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was involved in a record cocaine importation plotted by British crime lord Robert Dawes, who was known as The One
A notorious British crime boss known as “The One” has been implicated into a record-breaking cocaine importation, according to US court documents. He is believed to have carried out the operation alongside ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Robert Dawes was slapped with a 22-year prison sentence in France for orchestrating the £216million shipment, which US prosecutors now allege Maduro had a part in. The ex-president and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores, are currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in New York after being whisked away from Caracas by US special forces.
The pair face a litany of charges, including conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, importing cocaine and stockpiling weapons to use against the US. The indictment alleges that Maduro and two high-ranking government officials were embroiled in trafficking 1.3 tonnes of cocaine via an Air France flight from Caracas to Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris in September 2013.
The illicit cargo was stashed in 31 suitcases not linked to any passengers on the flight, hinting at the involvement of security services at Maiquetia Airport in Caracas. Following the seizure, Maduro reportedly called an urgent meeting with Diosdado Cabello Rondón, the current Minister of the Interior, and Hugo Carvajal Barrios, the former head of military intelligence, reports the Mirror.
The US Department of Justice alleges that the former president instructed Rondon and Barrios to avoid using the airport for future trafficking, instead suggesting they utilise other “well-established drug routes and locations to dispatch cocaine”. The indictment, spanning 25 pages, states that Maduro then authorised the arrest of several Venezuelan military officials “in an effort to divert public and law enforcement scrutiny away” from his “participation in the shipment and its coverup.”
The document concludes: “In sum, MADURO MOROS and his co-conspirators have, for decades, partnered with some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world, and relied on corrupt officials throughout the region, to distribute tons of cocaine to the United States.” Notably, Dawes is not mentioned in this document.
In connection with the massive cocaine haul, which was the largest ever seized in France at the time, the Venezuelan authorities arrested 22 people. Among them were eight members of the National Guard and nine Air France and airport staff.
At the time of the plot, Maduro had just succeeded former president Hugo Chávez, who passed away in March 2013. In 2014, during a conversation in a Madrid hotel with two Colombian drug traffickers, Dawes was recorded by law enforcement boasting of being behind the shipment, telling them: “You know the big one in Paris in all the luggage… that was mine.”
Dawes, a wed grandfather hailing from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, stands accused of commissioning no fewer than two killings. He earned the nickname “Teflon Don” after dodging justice for decades through violence, corrupt officials and clever anti-surveillance methods.
Flitting between legal jurisdictions, he maintained contacts across more than 50 countries, spanning Afghanistan, China, Italy, Nigeria, Colombia and New Zealand. His previous globe-trotting existence stands in stark contrast to his upbringing in a modest terraced house on a council estate.
One resident remarked: “You won’t get anyone to talk about the Dawes family, they are terrifying. John is out of prison now and still hangs around the estate.
“No one will say a bad word about them round here because they gave loads of people work.” A former Nottinghamshire detective who pursued the Dawes operation commented: “They were juvenile criminals who got into drugs and began to take control.
“Rob was the main man. He had the skills to make the organisation a formidable force and was also a proper thug.”
In fear of being apprehended, Dawes escaped to Spain in 2001. He remains a “person of interest” in the 2002 murder of Nottingham businessman David Draycott.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.