Latin America - We could be seeing the beginning of a major shakedown.

THE LATIN AMERICAN LEFTIST REVIVALWAS REALLY ORGANIZED CRIME


by Daniel Greenfield


When Venezuela couldn't run on energy anymore, it ran on cocaine.


U.S. prosecutors are investigating several high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including the president of the country’s congress, on suspicion that they have turned the country into a global hub for cocaine trafficking and money laundering, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the probes.

An elite unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington and federal prosecutors in New York and Miami are building cases using evidence provided by former cocaine traffickers, informants who were once close to top Venezuelan officials and defectors from the Venezuelan military, these people say.

A leading target, according to a Justice Department official and other American authorities, is National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most-powerful man.

Venezuelan money is currently being used as napkins. And now the action moves on to Brazil where the leftist regime has been sitting pretty for far too long.

A convicted black market money dealer who turned state's evidence told lawmakers on Tuesday that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, knew of the sprawling corruption kickback scheme that has engulfed state-run oil company Petrobras.

Alberto Youssef, who has been talking to prosecutors in exchange for less jail time, made his remarks before a congressional panel investigating the alleged scheme.

Without providing any proof, Youssef said Rousseff had knowledge of the scheme when she chaired the board at Petrobras between 2003 and 2010. Much of the alleged corruption took place at that time.

Asked if he thought Silva as president knew and okayed the kickback scheme, Youssef said "that's correct."

Both Rousseff and Silva have denied knowing about the scheme.

Rousseff was a former Marxist terrorist, which is not an unusual resume in Latin American governments these days. But she got away with quite a bit... until now.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators returned to the streets in dozens of Brazilian cities on Sunday to call for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, blaming her for a vast corruption scandal and the economy's worst slump in a quarter century.

Less than a year into her tumultuous second term, the left-wing president's approval rating has dwindled to single digits and polls show that two in three Brazilians support calls for her impeachment.

In the third wave of demonstrations against Rousseff this year, protesters convened by social media across Latin America's largest country created a festive family atmosphere and chanted "Out with Dilma!"

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