Trump says the boat crews are drug terrorists. The truth is more nuanced, as NPR found

GUERIA, VENEZUELA – One of them was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. The third was a former military student. The fourth was an unlucky bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan coastal towns, and the fact that the four were among more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration claims were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and senior US officials have claimed that the plane is operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members linked to drugs that are deadly to American communities.

The Associated Press has identified four of the men — and gathered details on at least five others — who were killed, providing the first detailed account of those who died in the strikes.

In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats set out, residents and relatives said the dead men were indeed drug traffickers, but were not drug terrorists, cartel or gang leaders.

Residents and their relatives said that most of the nine men were working on such boats for the first or second time, earning at least $500 per trip. They were workers, a fisherman, and a motorcycle taxi driver. Two of them were low-level professional criminals. One of them was a known local crime boss who contracted smuggling services to traffickers.

On the Paria Peninsula, the men lived in mostly unpainted brick houses that could go weeks without water service and regularly had electricity cut off for several hours a day. They woke up to panoramic views of the tropical forests of a national park, the shallows of the Gulf of Paria, and the sparkling sapphire waters of the Caribbean. When it was time to take drugs, they boarded open fishing boats that relied on powerful outboard motors to transport their drugs to neighboring Trinidad and other islands.

Residents and relatives interviewed by the AP asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from drug traffickers, the Venezuelan government or the Trump administration. They said they were angry that the men were killed without due process. In the past, U.S. authorities and crew members charged with federal crimes would intercept their boats, giving them the opportunity to stand trial.

“The US government should have stopped them,” a relative of the man said.

It has been difficult for relatives to learn much about their dead loved ones because criminal gangs and the Venezuelan government have long suppressed the flow of information in the region.

Venezuelan officials criticized the US government for the attacks, and the country’s ambassador to the United Nations described the attacks as “extrajudicial executions.” They have also strongly denied that drug traffickers operate in the country and have yet to acknowledge that any of its citizens have been killed in boat attacks. Venezuelan government spokesmen did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration justified the strikes by declaring that the drug cartels were “unlawful combatants” and said that the United States was now in “armed conflict” with them. Trump said that each sunken boat saved the lives of 25,000 Americans, possibly from overdoses. However, the boats appeared to be transporting cocaine, not the more deadly synthetic opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement to the AP that the Defense Department “has consistently said that our intelligence did confirm that the individuals involved in these drug operations were narco-terrorists, and we stand by that assessment.”

So far, the US military has blown up 17 ships, killing more than 60 people. Nine of the planes were targeted in the Caribbean, and at least three of them departed from Venezuela, according to the Trump administration. The army is striking the boats at the same time as the administration is putting increasing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The Justice Department doubled the reward for his arrest to $50 million, and the US military has amassed an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela, launching pairs of supersonic heavy bombers along the country’s coast.

Relatives and acquaintances said they confirmed the death through verbal and non-explicit social media posts, which sought to convey information about the dead without drawing the attention of Venezuelan authorities. They also made what they called reasonable deductions: The men did not answer phone calls or texts in weeks, or reach out to say they were fine; Residents said Venezuelan authorities also searched some of the homes of the dead.

“I want an answer, but who can I ask?” A relative of one of the men said. “I can’t say anything.”

The hunter

Robert Sanchez, a native of Guiria, a village on the southeastern side of the peninsula, left school as a teenager and like many others in the area became a fisherman like his father, according to friends and relatives. The 42-year-old was considered one of the best pilots on the peninsula, having spent the better part of three decades mastering the region’s currents and winds, so much so that he could navigate the waters at night without instruments, they said.

As part of charter crews, the father of four spent his days fishing for snapper, kingfish and dogfish. The fisherman wanted to save enough money to buy a 75-horsepower boat motor so he could run his own boat and not work for others. It was a dream Sanchez knew he would likely never achieve, his relatives said: Most of his income — about $100 a month — goes to feed his children.

He was not alone in this situation.

The peninsula is part of Sucre state, one of Venezuela’s poorest states. Sucre was once home to several fish processing plants, an automobile assembly plant, and a large public university, all of which provided well-paying jobs. Most of them have been closed. The peninsula is dotted with broken promises from 26 years of a self-described socialist government, including an abandoned shipyard and rusting infrastructure intended for a natural gas complex.

Due to its proximity to the Caribbean Sea, the region is a popular transit hub for cocaine that makes its way from Colombia to Trinidad and other Caribbean islands before heading to Europe. Colombian cocaine destined for the United States is generally smuggled from Colombia via the Pacific coast.

Friends and relatives said it was greater economic pressures — and Sanchez’s goal of owning a boat motor — that prompted the fisherman to accept an offer to help smugglers navigate the difficult waters he knew so well.

Sanchez had just finished unloading his one day’s catch last month when he told his mother he was taking a short trip and would see her in two days. They had no idea where he was headed.

After watching clips on social media indicating his death, his mother’s relatives reported the news, but not until they confirmed that she was taking blood pressure medication. Sanchez’s youngest son, a third-grader, could not accept his father’s departure for several days. He kept asking the adults if his father had survived the explosion, suggesting that he might still be at sea.

No, the adults told the boy. His father is gone.

One of the first to die

Luis “Che” Martinez was killed in the first strike. Martinez, a burly man of 60, was a longtime local crime boss who made most of his living smuggling drugs and people across the border, according to several people who knew him.

Venezuelan authorities imprisoned him on human trafficking charges after a boat he was operating capsized in December 2020, killing about two dozen people, law enforcement officials said at the time. His relatives told the Associated Press that among those killed in the accident were two of his sons and his granddaughter. The AP was unable to determine the disposition of his criminal case, but Martinez was eventually released from custody and returned to trafficking people and drugs, according to acquaintances.

Although they hated what he did for a living — and the control Martinez and similar criminals exercised over their villages — many residents said they appreciated Martinez’s annual contribution to the town’s festival of the Virgin of the Valley, patroness of fishermen, and that he would spend lavishly at local shops and restaurants. One bird breeder said that he bets heavily on cockfighting, which is a popular pastime.

A relative of Martinez and several acquaintances said Martinez was killed in the first known U.S. strike, which occurred on September 2. Trump quickly took to social media to claim that the ship had left Venezuela and was carrying drugs. The president said the crew of 11 were members of the Tren de Aragua gang. He said all the men were killed, and also posted a short video of a small ship appearing to explode in flames.

Martinez’s relatives said they did not believe the underworld figure was a member of that gang.

They said they had not received any information from the Venezuelan government about his fate. They discovered this when they found a photo of a body washed up on a beach in Trinidad. The photo was shared on social media and messaging apps, and showed a severely mutilated body. People familiar with Martinez said they immediately knew the muscular body was Martinez, because on his left wrist was one of his most prized possessions: a luxury watch.

Former student and bus driver

Dušak Milovcic, 24, was drawn to crime by the adrenaline rush and money, so much so that he dropped out of the country’s National Guard Academy, according to those who knew him. They said he began searching for smugglers. Although he had no experience at sea, he eventually earned a promotion to more lucrative and desirable jobs aboard drug smuggling boats.

It is not clear how many trips he made before his death last month.

Juan Carlos “El Guaramiro” Fuentes had been running a bus for several years but was facing difficult financial circumstances when it broke down. The government was unable or unwilling to fix the matter. This meant he was losing money because bus drivers in Venezuela usually took a cut of the fare, making it almost impossible for him to feed and clothe his family.

Villagers said they were not surprised that Fuentes, who had no maritime experience, turned to smuggling to make ends meet. High-ranking traffickers who usually boarded such boats were staying on the beach to avoid being targeted by US missiles. Instead, villagers said, they were increasingly hiring novices like Fuentes.

Fuentes told friends that he was nervous about his first smuggling trip because he knew the trip would be full of dangers from the weather, rival gangs, and even the U.S. military. He told his friends that the September trip had gone surprisingly smoothly, and he readily agreed to join another crew. His friends said Fuentes was killed in a missile attack last month, but the exact attack is unknown.