For the 300,000 residents of Cota 905, a sprawling, precarious collection of brick houses by a motorway in the centre of Caracas, the most powerful man in Venezuela is not President Maduro.
Instead, it is “El Koki”, a gang leader who is believed to have made a fortune through kidnapping and extortion. Since 2015, the 43-year-old has turned the impoverished community, less than three miles from the presidential palace, into his private fiefdom, complete with an army of 200 “enforcers”.
The Maduro government, distracted by its own chaotic battle for survival amid an economic collapse, used to quietly ignore the gangster on its doorstep. But this year, after Koki’s network began expanding into new areas, it took action.
Posters were distributed, offering half a million dollars for information leading to the arrest of the gang leader, whose real name is Carlos Luis Revete. A photograph was released showing him snarling at the camera, with a military haircut, three thick gold chains, and a pendant engraved with the four letters of his nom de guerre.
Maduro’s notorious FAES special forces, which are widely suspected of routinely carrying out extrajudicial killings, have entered the El Koki territory on several occasions. At least 50 people have been killed during the raids, including bystanders.
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The most violent attack was last month, when about 800 security forces stormed the area. They killed 23 suspected criminals and burnt down a nightclub where Koki held raucous parties. Over two brutal days one of the main motorways through the city, a route to the international airport, became a battlefield. Several people were arrested, including a glamorous female alleged accomplice of Koki, known as “The Hair”. Her suspected boss escaped.
This week, according to the Colombian police, he left Venezuela. He is understood to be hiding somewhere near the border town of Cucuta. Intelligence sources cited in the Colombian media have suggested that he has previously established contacts with money launderers in the area.
Koki is one of several gangsters in Venezuela who have benefited from a steep decline of the power of the state since Maduro took over from his socialist mentor, Hugo Chávez, who died from cancer in 2013.
The country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but in recent years has mismanaged that gift disastrously. Inflation is running above 2,000 per cent. Its currency, the bolivar, has collapsed. Last week, the government announced that it will soon remove yet more zeros from each banknote, meaning one million bolivars becomes one.
An international effort to unseat Maduro, who is widely accused of rigging elections and ruling as a dictator, has come to nothing. Several western nations, including the US and the UK, formally recognise the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president. The US has placed sanctions on dozens of people in the government, including Maduro, and sanctioned the oil industry. But the army has stayed loyal to the regime, while Guaidó’s popularity has slumped from 60 per cent in January 2019 to under 20 per cent. At least five million Venezuelans, nearly a fifth of the population, have emigrated.
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“Maduro knows that to stay in power he needs to share power, and often with some unsavoury people,” said one former government official. Across the country, the near-bankrupt state’s authority has diminished, with the power gap being filled by militia groups or illegal mining gangs.
Koki is alleged to have begun to amass his criminal fortune in 2013, when Caracas was the crime capital of the world and five people were kidnapped every day. His power grew in 2015 when a government crackdown on crime, called
“Operation liberate the people”, led to the extermination of several gang leaders, most of whom were Koki’s competitors, while he was left untouched. The rumour is he had contacts in the security forces.
“Koki became a quasi-government in the areas he controlled,” said Javier Mayorca, a Venezuelan expert on organised crime. “By 2019, you could not do social work in the Cota 905 without first asking permission from him,” he said. Last year, when the country was in full lockdown for the pandemic, the gang-leader hosted a huge party for his followers. Its salsa music was audible in the environs of the presidential palace.
A reduction in criminal business income because of the coronavirus pandemic is believed to have been one reason why Koki began to extend his territory further, the move that finally triggered the response from the government and his apparent escape to Colombia.
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Mayorca is convinced that Koki, like others who are finding riches in the ruins of Venezuela, will be back. “This is where he can live most comfortably,” he said.