The Civil Guard arrested two Venezuelan ex-diplomats with 50 kilos of cocaine on September 8 at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. The investigation remains confidential.
The Civil Guard detained two Venezuelan ex-diplomats accused of smuggling 50 kilos of cocaine into Spain on September 8 at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. The operation, reported by the Cuban outlet cibercuba.com, has not been publicly disclosed until now, nearly three weeks after the arrests.
One of those arrested is José Rafael Escorihuela Pereira, who arrived at Barajas on a flight from the Dominican Republic with a Venezuelan diplomatic passport. When intercepted, he claimed to be a serving diplomat to avoid customs control, but officers opened his luggage and found the 50 kilos of drugs.
Escorihuela served for years as minister counsellor and deputy head of mission at the Venezuelan embassies in India and Spain, under the orders of Coromoto Godoy Calderón, the current permanent representative of Venezuela to the UN. When Godoy was appointed Minister of Foreign Trade by Maduro in January 2025, Escorihuela took over that office in Caracas.
The second detainee, Kelvin Jesús Matos Pérez, also worked at the Venezuelan embassy in Madrid and is the ex-brother-in-law of Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the son of the former Venezuelan president imprisoned in New York. The Civil Guard is investigating whether Matos acted as a link for Escorihuela in the Spanish capital and if there are more people involved.
According to sources consulted, Escorihuela had made five trips using the same method: he would leave Venezuela on private flights with the drugs, stop in Santo Domingo, and from there fly to Madrid on commercial flights. The repetition of this itinerary alerted Dominican authorities, who shared intelligence information with the Civil Guard, allowing for surveillance and the arrest in Barajas.
The director of El Pitazo, César Batiz, noted that the Civil Guard confirmed to the outlet that the proceedings remain confidential.
The Spanish Civil Guard confirmed to El Pitazo that the proceedings remain under secrecy and therefore could not provide further details about their involvement in the case.
The judicial proceedings continue under strict secrecy, and no information has been provided about the legal status of the detainees or possible new arrests.
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