How Two Former Chavismo Generals Use Cooperation, Narrative, and Hybrid Warfare to Try to Save Themselves
For two decades, Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal and Clíver Alcalá Cordones were not just ordinary officers in the Chavismo military apparatus. They were essential pieces in a power structure that combined ideology, intelligence, organized crime, terrorism, and territorial control. Both were involved—in accordance with federal documents—in the structure that the U.S. government now defines as a narco-state, a machinery where drug trafficking, FARC, Mexican cartels, and sectors of the Venezuelan Armed Forces operated as cogs in the same political project.
This system needed them while they served the regime. Today, however, both are in the custody of U.S. justice, facing charges that could lead them to die in prison. And both Carvajal and Alcalá have grasped something fundamental: if they want to survive, they must destroy with information the very system they constructed.
Though their paths differ, they are headed in the same direction: trying to become key witnesses, narrative tools, and strategic assets for the United States in the war against the Cartel de los Soles.
The Two Men Who Know How the Narco-State Was Born
Hugo Carvajal was the chief architect of chavista military intelligence and counterintelligence. For years, he operated in the shadows, designing internal networks of surveillance, infiltration, and political manipulation. He was intimately acquainted with the flow of drug money, the military protection offered to FARC, and the logistical workings of drug shipments to Central America and Mexico.
Carvajal was always the man who knew too much. That’s why the regime protected him… until it stopped.
Clíver Alcalá Cordones, on the other hand, was never at a desk. His world consisted of clandestine airstrips, military units on the border, and operational agreements with guerrilla fronts. From Apure to Falcón, Alcalá coordinated the land and air infrastructure that supported cocaine trafficking for over a decade.
While Carvajal understood the architecture, Alcalá understood the bricks.
For U.S. intelligence, both represent a pair of black boxes capable of revealing how the Cartel de los Soles truly operated from within the Venezuelan state.
The Dramatic Turn: When the Narco-State Stops Protecting Its Generals
The system that protected Carvajal and Alcalá began to crumble when U.S. federal courts formalized charges of narcoterrorism. Loyalties evaporated. Chavismo’s diplomacy ceased to be useful.
And both generals realized they were alone. Alcalá made the decision to surrender to the DEA to avoid being kidnapped by groups looking to collect the $10 million bounty the U.S. offered for his head. He surrendered, pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 21 years and 8 months in prison, and is now trying to get out of jail by leveraging the media channels that have emerged in the face of the conflicted reality aiming to dethrone the Cartel de los Soles.
The question that guides all their current decisions:
How to survive a narco-state that no longer protects them and a judicial system that demands truth, evidence, and cooperation?
Their answer has been the same: snitching, “sapping” to avoid dying in a U.S. prison. But speaking at the right moment, to the right interlocutor, and with information that impacts the most powerful figures in the regime.
Carvajal Strikes First: The Letter That Triggered a Political War
The first blow was dealt by Hugo Carvajal. His public letter to President Donald Trump was more than a legal and counterintelligence strategy: it was a move in an information war. From his cell, Carvajal chose to bypass traditional judicial channels and speak directly to the White House.
In that letter, he revealed:
- Names of high-ranking Chavismo officials linked to cocaine trafficking,
- Detailed routes used by FARC and the Cartel de los Soles,
- Financial schemes connecting the leadership to criminal operations,
- Meetings, secret agreements, and military commitments with irregular networks.
The letter had a central objective: to reposition himself as an indispensable asset for the United States.
And he succeeded. Washington took note, the regime entered into internal panic, and Carvajal went from being just another accused individual to someone whose information could shatter the structure of the narco-state.
Alcalá Prepares His Own Offensive
After being sentenced to 21 years for supporting terrorism, Clíver Alcalá faces a different situation. He cannot avoid a sentence. He cannot stop the process. But he can change his future.
Alcalá is now preparing a public letter addressed again to President Trump. He knows that this letter, if well-constructed, can achieve two effects:
- Modify the Justice Department’s perception of his strategic value.
- Force his inclusion as a witness in broader investigations.
He does not aim to be released immediately. He aims to demonstrate that his information is necessary to dismantle the largest criminal structure: the Cartel de los Soles.
His letter will, like Carvajal’s, be a weapon of hybrid warfare. It will contain data, locations, names, and an internal reading of how drug corridors operated in Venezuela under military protection.
It’s a move that could change his future.
And also alter the judicial narrative of the Venezuelan case.
The Narrative Defines the Fate
In the federal system, nothing weighs more than an accused person’s capacity to provide verifiable information that helps capture, prosecute, or convict more relevant individuals. Carvajal understood this from the start: that’s why his letter was not an act of desperation but of strategy.
Alcalá is now replicating it. His letter could assist the Justice Department in justifying a motion for sentence reduction under Rule 35(b) in the future, if his cooperation proves useful in larger investigations.
In both cases, the effect is clear: the public narrative boosts legal value.
The Political Battle: Competing for the President’s Attention
Carvajal and Alcalá are not just competing for judicial benefits.
They are competing against each other for President Trump and the White House’s attention.
The value of a witness in narcoterrorism cases is not solely measured by what he knows but by what the administration needs.
Carvajal offers high-density intelligence.
Alcalá offers the operational dimension of drug trafficking.
Together, they represent living proof that the Cartel de los Soles was not a rhetorical invention but a militarized and functional structure within the Venezuelan state.
Hybrid Warfare: Information as a Decisive Weapon
Today, neither of them fires rifles or commands troops.
But they both remain combatants: fighters in the information war.
The information they possess is a weapon.
The letter is their projectile.
Carvajal launched a political missile that shook the entire system.
Alcalá prepares a precision drone, designed to influence the narrative and decision-making in Washington.
The United States knows these men have secrets that could reconfigure its hemispheric strategy.
The Venezuelan regime knows their testimonies could dismantle years of clandestine operations.
Both sides need to control them.
And they know it.
Two Narco-Generals, One War for Survival
Carvajal struck first.
Alcalá prepares his reply.
Both aim at the same target: to survive the system they helped build.
They compete to be the most useful military voice for the United States.
They compete to become indispensable pieces in the strategy against the narco-state.
They compete, even, over who will tell first and best what Washington wants to know.
In this game, military ranks and old loyalties to Chavismo no longer matter.
What matters is who can speak.
Who can prove it.
Who can be useful.
Because the war they are currently waging is not fought in jungles or barracks.
It is fought with letters, documents, statements, and uncomfortable truths.
And only the general who speaks the truth first that can topple the Cartel de los Soles will survive.