Venezuela Arrests 13 Police Officials over Corruption Charges
The country's authorities detained on Wednesday 13 police officials for alleged corruption. The government of Nicolas Maduro demonstrated again its commitment to combating corruption in the police forces of the country.
The officials belonged to the Body of Scientific and Criminal Investigations (CICPC), suspected of carrying out extortion acts on local businesses in El Valle, a district of the capital Caracas.
The authorities responsible for the investigation included the Presidential Commission for the Transformation of the Police System (CPTSP), the Attorney General of the Republic, and the Public Ministry.
A raid launched on the headquarters of the CICPC found a local businessperson locked up for 48 hours, as well as a stolen truck linked to the crimes, belonging to the Food Distributor GC, informed the president of the Commission, Freddy Bernal of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The investigation was also grounded on many complaints filed by residents about a complicity between this police institutions and others with criminal groups of the country, explained the legislator.
The detainees include a commissioner-in-chief of investigations, the commissioner-supervisor and two chiefs of brigades, Bernal said, as well as nine other detectives.
When creating the presidential commission on Oct. 31, Maduro stated that it had to progress with the refounding of the citizen security bodies through the creation of a “new civic-police doctrine.”
“Just like we have our civic-military doctrine, with the armed forces and the people all together, we need to reach a similar civic-police union, a police revolution in order to have professional police bodies, well equipped and trained,” asserted the president during a public event in the state of Lara.
“The goal is to end with all the vices of the police forces … and to that purpose the commission must diagnose the internal situation of these institutions and generate tools in order to have police that really guarantee human rights,” Maduro said.