Swimming in Oil

By Benjamin James

Swimming in Oil is a spine-tingling thriller set in the ruthless world of drugs and arms smuggling in South America. Heart-stopping action defines the book as drugs are exported from Colombia to Europe in extraordinary new ways before British Intelligence brings the drama to its knees. The reverse trade of smuggling arms to guerrilla groups builds up to an unmissable, dramatic finale - brilliant!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin James
• Release date: Apr 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301354412

Benjamin James

I have spent many years travelling the world and have seen many types of government in action. I decided to write "Swimming in Oil" to underline the complexities of power and corruption that can afflict a potentially very rich country such as Venezuela; one of the countries I know best. What happens when an administration allows the persona of a maverick autocrat to dominate policy without accountability? What happens when the cult of the individual takes precedence over economic management? Who are the good guys, who are the bad? There are no easy answers to such questions, but I hope you may ponder them as you read the book.

Book preview

Swimming in Oil

Amidst a world of drugs and arms smuggling, this novel provides a reality-check set in the centres of power, corruption and intrigue sprouting from the conspiratorial world of Venezuelan socialism under the last days of Hugo Chávez.

- A BENJAMIN JAMES NOVEL -

Swimming in Oil

Published by Benjamin James at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Benjamin James

This novel is dedicated to all those who have lived

in Venezuela during the Chávez years –

from Bolivarian Republic to Banana Republic.

ISBN 9781301354412

This novel is a work of fiction. Unless any passage is credited to an original source, the entire contents of the novel are to be treated as products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Devlin put the phone back in its cradle, picked up his briefcase and left without acknowledging anyone. The need to get to the crime scene in short order meant he could use a chauffeured pool car from the small fleet maintained on round the clock standby at the Embassy.

Any journey within Caracas could be dangerous for a foreigner. Venezuela, after all, had one of the highest murder rates in the world with flurries of seemingly unstoppable carjackings and kidnappings. In its Venezuela 2012 crime and safety report, the U.S. Department of State rated the criminal threat level for Caracas as CRITICAL. In 2010, Caracas claimed the highest murder rate in any capital city, averaging one murder every hour. Over the last three years, things had only got worse. Under the Chávez regime, personal safety had become a key priority for all - an armed chauffeur was no luxury and Malcolm Bryant was more than a chauffeur – he was one of Devlin’s team. Bryant, a taciturn misery even on a good day, weaved his way through the traffic in the direction of Maquetía, the main airport at Caracas. Devlin had few facts to go on but he had reacted instantly to the message from Rojas. Carlos Rojas Hernández was a man whose word one took seriously.

Brought up in an army family, Rojas had been a junior officer with Chávez and had seen at first hand the unsuccessful coup Chavez had mounted against President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992. He held in check his visceral hatred of the Chávez circus with what Rojas considered its corrupt and intellectually bankrupt vision of anti-imperialism founded on a fairy-tale interpretation of the exploits of the great South American liberator, Símon Bolívar.

Rojas was a pragmatist and, despite his deeply held views, he had held his counsel and had risen through the ranks of the military to become head of DGIM, the military intelligence service and now ran SEBIN, the state intelligence service. He knew where many skeletons were buried - literally as well as metaphorically. Rojas would undoubtedly demand a high price for his help but Devlin had been in Venezuela long enough to know exactly how la palanca worked in Venezuela. Everybody used it and it had always been a social lubricant as well as a foundation for major abuse of the state and for corruption.

At a simple level, la palanca was no more than influence. It might mean you would receive a favour in return for a favour or be first in line for a promotion you did not necessarily deserve. Rojas was strictly diamond league with financial expectations to match. State salaries alone were not sufficient to finance his large Caracas household, his mistress who lived in a Bavarian style villa in the German settlement at Colonia Tovar some 25 miles from the capital as well as his frequent trips to the fleshpots of Miami.

Rojas did not take long to gather that the man killed by a cement-mixing lorry and run off the road was not the victim of an accident. The identity of the deceased removed any doubt. A review of the CCTV recording showed the cement lorry execute two deliberate side-swipes followed by a rapid departure as the taxi left the road and caught fire in a gully some seventy feet below. Manuel Wilson was a man with whom Rojas had both fought and co-operated. Wilson was known to him as a trader with links to Colombia; both the rebels fighting against the Colombian government who operated with tacit protection against interference from the Venezuelan military as well as the drug cartels who used Venezuela as part of their trade routes from Colombia to Europe. For such a man to meet a violent death was no great surprise but Rojas knew there would be reprisals and that the blood of someone so high up the criminal chain signified for him an opportunity. Some serious event had led to the decision to eliminate Wilson and someone would want revenge. Rojas could see two clear opportunities to enhance his wealth and smiled. He had ostensibly summoned Devlin to give him information but, in reality, it was Devlin who could possibly help him.

Bryant brought the car to a halt and methodically surveyed the scene, recognising no-one. Brushing away an enquiry from a police officer attending the incident, he went to speak to one of the paramedics and, after a brief chat, he followed Devlin keeping a discreet distance from him. Devlin approached an unmarked car and entered it to speak with Rojas. The chauffeur got out and took up his station nearby, occasionally speaking into his radio and otherwise checking his pistol.

Hola, compadre, growled Rojas from behind his drooping moustache. Buenos días. Heavily built and seeming always to exude charm and menace in equal measure, Rojas nevertheless managed a broad smile as Devlin squeezed in beside him.

Buenos días, mi General, replied Devlin not unaware that despite the cordiality of the welcome, a show of respect would be the most appropriate reply.

The two men settled down to discuss what they knew so far. Devlin had, since taking up his role as head of the British Intelligence operation covering Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador some three years ago, often traded information with Rojas but had never managed to feel quite at ease in the ex-soldier's company. As they traded information they both already knew, Devlin sensed that his invitation to the scene of the collision might have another purpose. He began to analyse the questions he was being asked and what he was being fed. Conspicuous by its absence was any mention of Wilson's involvement in shaving a percentage from the shipments of oil that the Venezuelan government was making to poorer Latin American and Caribbean nations, often as a barter for agricultural produce and financed at artificially low rates over unrealistically long periods by the Venezuelan Central Bank.

Courtesy of a satellite link from GCHQ in Cheltenham, Devlin had seen satellite pictures of tankers carrying oil intercepted en route to their destinations. Oil would be pumped from the major vessel to a smaller vessel that left sitting much lower in the water than it had been prior to the meeting. No reports of these transfers were ever made to the police or the naval authorities. The smaller vessels had been tracked and seen discharging their cargoes in a series of small Caribbean harbours where questions were unlikely to be asked. An investigation had been set in train to look at which companies were involved in all aspects of the business and Devlin was awaiting the results.

Devlin had understood the flow of questions was moving to the subject of Wilson's circle of contacts and focussing on what shifts of power might take place following his demise but Rojas was being very careful not to mention any individuals, merely referring to groups known in their murky world by pseudonyms and by references to senior government figures as well as to drugs gangs and cartels.

Wishing to bring matters to a conclusion, Devlin undertook to make enquiries of his own and to meet with Rojas in a few days to see if any progress could be made. Rojas promised to shake some trees and break some limbs if necessary but on leaving the meeting he wasted no time in directing his chauffeur to drive up some 2,200 metres up into the cloud forest surrounding Colonia Tovar where he could profit from a cool, temperate climate and a warm, welcoming embrace.

The first thing that Devlin needed to establish was exactly why Rojas had called him so early after a traffic accident. Devlin knew about Wilson’s background – none of which had appeared in the press and neither had the conclusion that a double murder had taken place. Wilson also had dual British Venezuelan nationality – his father’s side of the family hailed from Sussex. Rojas was after something – for the moment that was the only conclusion Devlin could draw with certainty.

Devlin spent an evening at home in the close company of a single malt whisky as he had done so often before. His ability to concentrate single-mindedly on one subject for days had long been a characteristic of his work. Since leaving the University of Manchester, where he had excelled at Mathematics, Devlin had gained a reputation as an inveterate problem solver. Well aware that some considered him a loner with a tendency to avoid the society of his colleagues, Devlin remained a creature of habit. He was a man happy with his own company but who inspired others through example. Possessed of an potent mixture of intellect, persistence and imagination, Devlin had spent over twenty years working in the world of crime. His early career had seen him gain promotion to the rank of Major within the Military Police before joining the Royal Hong Kong Police Force where he had stayed until the hand over of sovereignty to China in 1997.

His experience in Hong Kong was within two of the most difficult divisions of the force. Firstly, the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau which addressed the fearsome organised crime gangs involved in drugs, arms trafficking, gambling, prostitution and extortion. From there, he transferred to the position of Head of the Narcotics Bureau. This department not only investigated serious drug cases within Hong Kong but also gathered intelligence in partnership with overseas law enforcement agencies whenever a link to Hong Kong existed. His officers were also responsible for financial investigations using powers granted under the Drug Trafficking (Recovery of Proceeds) Ordinance, Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance and the United Nations (Anti-Terrorism Measures) Ordinance.

Devlin was now bringing his considerable experience to bear upon the cocaine trade in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. He had already found that, as in Hong Kong, those involved in the drugs trade were dealing with huge sums of money, had no compunction about using violence and operated on a global scale. His thoughts about the summons from Rojas provided much food for thought and he settled down to start to produce some ideas about how he could organise his investigations.

Chapter 2

Returning to the Embassy, Bryant revealed that he had been offered the possibility of buying the mobile phone which had supposedly belonged to the deceased but on examining the phone he had realised it already lacked its SIM card. Bryant did not take kindly to people who tried to take advantage of him The would-be vendor did not realise at the time that he was now a marked man and photographed carefully on Bryant's mobile. Bryant was a patient hunter who neither forgave nor forgot. He agreed with Devlin that pursuit of the SIM card would be his personal crusade and Bryant set himself a timescale of no more than 48 hours to recover it.

Devlin reached his office in time to see the early evening news and noted that neither Globovision nor Venevision reported anything of the morning’s events. Long delays on the busy main road to the airport were no surprise but to find no mention of the fire or the considerable military presence around the crime scene struck him as odd. Globovision was the only private television chain critical of Chávez left and had suffered from fines and harassment for its audacity in questioning the received wisdom of the regime. The only other critic in the media had been RCTV which had lost its rights to broadcast on terrestrial channels and was reduced to satellite transmission only. Venevision was broadly neutral but took a cautious editorial stance.

Devlin assembled those members of his team working the late shift and after a briefing on what he knew so far, he set his team on the task of pursuing informers well placed within the state bureaucracy as well as some of their sapos one of the many local terms for an informer.

His team consisted of three agents. Devlin had insisted that each team member would have military experience, native level Spanish and an appearance that would enable him or her to melt in to a crowd without being instantly recognised as a gringo.

Liz Garrett had arrived from the Royal Navy after completing her degree in Modern Languages at Warwick University. She was nominally part of the press section at the Embassy and set out to contact Rafael Lugo - a senior member of the government press office who had invited her several times for dinner with no luck. Having fixed to meet the following day, Liz resumed her study of Lugo who figured in a variety of reports but never appeared to link to any particular sphere of influence from which the Embassy could profit. Handsome and charming like her Panamanian mother, Liz was every inch the party girl but also possessed of a hard-shelled inner self which had grown tougher during her military life. Lugo could imagine what he liked but to Liz their meeting would be strictly business.

The three ex-soldiers in the team split the city by geographical area and began their sequence of calls and clandestine meetings whilst Bryant quietly made his way to the Bello Monte morgue in the south of the city which in 2012 received about twenty corpses a day – 80% of them with gunshot wounds. When in August 2010 El Nacional, a major national newspaper published on its front page a truly shocking photo of bloated corpses stacked randomly and without refrigeration in order to drive home the extent of the scandal, it provoked a huge public protest and a direct attempt at censorship by the government.

It was time to call in a favour from a junior officer of the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigation Agency (CICPC). Eduardo Flores lived nearby and was pleased to be able to repay the brooding driver who had intervened on his behalf after an unsavoury attack over a year ago. He lost no time in jumping on his scooter and driving the five blocks to his workplace where he was able to obtain what little information that existed concerning the death of Wilson.

Wilson had died, along with the driver, as the car crashed down into the gully and the two bodies had become badly burnt in the ensuing blaze. Nevertheless, clear identification of the two individuals was recorded and paperwork to allow the Coroner to pronounce a verdict of accidental death was in preparation. Flores did not recognise the photo on Bryant’s mobile phone but copied the image on to his own phone and then departed.

Further briefings were held in the morning to staff who were sent to build up a picture but a review meeting held early in the evening yielded little.

Devlin mused, whilst he again drank far too much coffee, and worked his way through the barrage of documents in front of him, on the paradox that is Venezuela. That an oil rich state, in an era of high oil prices, should find itself classed as number 174th in the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom, an annual guide published by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, one of Washington's leading think tanks seemed at first implausible. For oil-rich Venezuela to be one position behind war-torn Eritrea and one place in front of the disaster that was Mugabe’s Zimbabwe beggared belief. The Index’s report stated that, The foundations of economic freedom in Venezuela continue to deteriorate, severely hampered by structural and institutional problems. With the judicial system increasingly vulnerable to political interference, corruption is prevalent, and the rule of law is weak across the country. …. Corruption, exacerbated by cronyism and nepotism, is rampant at all levels of government. His team were responsible for working discretely in this miasma of corruption that had existed for many years and Bryant knew they would need to move skilfully to achieve any progress.

He cursed as he read of more activity on the western border of Venezuela with Colombia where a new cartel, Los Calientes, formed by hoodlums who had learnt their trade within the original Cali cartel founded by the brothers Orejuela, had begun to operate more openly than ever. Their trademark was violence – gruesome and prolific.

The border town of Cúcuta is the most active international border town in South America. Laid out on a grid system adopted from its former colonial rulers, Cúcuta delights in a pleasant, tropical savannah climate. It connects with Venezuela via the Pan-American Highway as well by flights from Camilo Daza Airport.

Colombia was party to a Trade Agreement with the United States which was originally opposed by Venezuela. Certain Venezuela entrepreneurs, Devlin knew, were using Cúcuta as their gateway to the US market. Businesses were busy establishing a nexus in Colombia to allow them to register their products as Colombian, in order to avoid certain tariffs. One of the prime movers and organisers behind this had been Manuel Wilson. Wilson had carefully cultivated close links with trade officials and customs officials in both Venezuela and Colombia. As well as being a close friend of the Mayor of Cúcuta, Wilson had used his contacts with the older cartels to secure cross border transit of goods both legal and illicit. The biggest element was cocaine and this sector was growing quickly as Venezuela became a more important distribution hub for the narcos. From what he knew so far, Devlin drew up a working hypothesis that the answer to Wilson’s demise was drug related and probably involved some Colombian influence.

Devlin was interrupted by James Markby, another of his agents. Markby had been charged with investigating the transactions surrounding the oil transfers and had unearthed a raft of companies, all registered in Caribbean jurisdictions where secrecy was paramount, taxation nil and where questions were unlikely to be asked. Shell companies did not even possess brass plates these days, plastic characters were just as convenient and in some way reflected more accurately the lack of solidity and permanence underpinning them.

Liaison with other agencies interested in identifying flows of funds through offshore accounts had revealed some accounts which appeared to be the conduits for transferring the illicit oil revenues. By creating a database of the information linking oil transfers and cash transfers a pattern had been established whereby funds would flow from a Panamanian shell company called Miramont to another shell company called Techaros registered in the Turks and Caicos Islands; always within 15 to 18 days of the oil transfer. Nominees owned both companies that had only minimal share capital and made the usual minimum disclosures.

The revelation that took Devlin unawares was the uncovering of monthly transfers from both Miramont and Techaros, via 3 other accounts to a destination account in Miami. The destination account was held by an ostensibly benevolent organisation which helped needy youngsters with their educational expenses. Money moved from whoever was taking the oil and selling it as well as from the eventual customer. Whilst the payments to the destination account represented no fixed percentage of the monies sent by Miramont to Techaros, every sixth payment seemed to be a balancing number that brought the total received by the charity to precisely 15% of the total flows during the previous six months – hardly a coincidence, as Markby had said. La Candelaria Educational Foundation was about to undergo a rigorous examination.

Markby was briefed to travel wherever he needed to go and to keep in touch daily. Now in his early forties, Markby was still a ball of energy. A family man with two sons attending senior school, he was a skeet shooter of some repute and a lousy golfer. Time not spent at work or with his family was spent