Trump accused the boat crews of being narcoterrorists. The truth is more nuanced.

GÜIRIA, Venezuela (AP) — One of them was a fisherman who struggled to make a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their coastal Venezuelan hometowns and the fact that the four were among more than 60 people killed since early September, when the U.S. military began attacking ships the Trump administration said were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and senior US officials have alleged that the ships were being operated by narcoterrorists and members of cartels destined for deadly drugs for US communities.

The News learned the identities of four of the men – and gathered details about at least five others – who were killed, providing the first detailed account of those who died in the attacks.

In dozens of interviews in towns along Venezuela’s stunning northeastern coast, where some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead had been trafficking drugs, but were not narcoterrorists or leaders of a cartel or gang.

Most of the nine men were crewing such a vessel for the first or second time and were earning at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were day laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two of them were low-level career criminals. One of them was a well-known local crime boss who subcontracted his smuggling services to traffickers.

The men lived on the Paria Peninsula in mostly unpainted cinder block houses that can go weeks without water service and regularly lose power for several hours a day. They woke up to panoramic views of the rainforests of a national park, the shallow waters of the Gulf of Paria, and the sparkling sapphire waters of the Caribbean. When it came time for their drug deals, they boarded open-hulled fishing boats that relied on powerful outboard motors to transport their drugs to nearby Trinidad and other islands.

Residents and family members interviewed by the AP requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from drug traffickers, the Venezuelan government or the Trump administration. They said they were outraged that the men were killed without due process. In the past, their ships would have been intercepted by US authorities and the crew members would have been charged with federal crimes, giving them a day to appear in court.

The U.S. government “should have stopped them,” a relative of one man said.

AP Illustration via AP

It has been difficult for relatives to know much about their deceased loved ones because criminal gangs and the Venezuelan government have long repressed the flow of information in the region.

Venezuelan officials have criticized the US government for the attacks, with the nation’s ambassador to the UN calling the attacks “extrajudicial executions.” They have also flatly denied that drug traffickers operate in the country and have not yet acknowledged that any of their citizens have died in attacks on boats. Venezuelan government spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has justified the attacks by declaring the drug cartels to be “illegal combatants” and saying the United States is now in “armed conflict” with them. Trump has said that each sunken ship has saved 25,000 American lives, presumably from overdoses. However, the ships appear to have been carrying cocaine, not the much deadlier synthetic opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, said in a statement to the AP that the Defense Department has “consistently said that our intelligence did indeed confirm that the individuals involved in these drug operations were narcoterrorists, and we stand by that assessment.”

So far, the US military has blown up 17 vessels, killing more than 60 people. Nine of the ships were attacked in the Caribbean and at least three of them had departed from Venezuela, according to the Trump administration. The military is attacking ships at the same time the administration is putting increasing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Justice Department doubled the reward for his arrest to $50 million, and the U.S. military has created an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela and flown pairs of supersonic heavy bombers along the country’s coast.

Relatives and acquaintances said they have confirmed the deaths through word of mouth and inexplicit posts on social media that sought to convey information about the dead without drawing the attention of Venezuelan authorities. They also made what they described as reasonable inferences: The men did not return phone calls or text messages for weeks, nor did they reach out to say they were okay; Venezuelan authorities, residents said, have also searched some of the homes of the dead.

“I want an answer, but who can I ask?” said a relative of one of the men. “I can’t say anything.”

the fisherman

AP Illustration via AP

Originally from Güiria, a town on the southeastern side of the peninsula, Robert Sánchez dropped out of school as a teenager and, like many others in the region, became a fisherman like his father, according to friends and family. The 42-year-old was considered one of the peninsula’s best pilots, they said, having spent the better part of three decades mastering the area’s currents and winds, to the point of being able to navigate the waters at night without instruments.

As part of the contract crews, the father of four spent his days fishing for snapper, kingfish and dogfish. The fisherman wanted to save enough money to buy a 75 horsepower boat motor so he could operate his own boat and not work for others. It was a dream Sánchez knew he would probably never come true, his relatives said: Most of his income (about $100 a month) went to feeding his children.

I was not alone in that situation.

The peninsula is part of the Sucre state, one of the poorest in Venezuela. Sucre was once home to several fish processing plants, an automobile assembly plant, and a large public university, all of which offered well-paying jobs. Most have closed their doors. The peninsula is dotted with broken promises from 26 years of a self-styled socialist government, including an abandoned shipyard and the rusting infrastructure earmarked for a natural gas complex.

Due to its proximity to the Caribbean Sea, the area is a popular transit hub for cocaine traveling from Colombia to Trinidad and other Caribbean islands before heading to Europe. Colombian cocaine destined for the United States is usually smuggled out of Colombia through the Pacific coast.

Greater financial pressures (and Sanchez’s goal of owning a boat engine) are what pushed the fisherman to accept an offer to help traffickers navigate the difficult waters he knew so well, friends and family said.

Sanchez had just finished unloading a day’s catch last month when he told his mother he was taking a short trip and would see her in a couple of days. They had no idea where he was going.

After seeing clips on social media mentioning her death, family members broke the news to her mother, but not until after making sure she had taken her blood pressure medication. Sánchez’s youngest son, in third grade, could not accept for days that his father was no longer here. He continued by asking the adults if his father could have survived the explosion, noting that he might still be at sea.

No, the adults told the child. His father was gone.

One of the first to die.

AP Illustration via AP

Luis “Che” Martínez died in the first attack. Martinez, a burly 60-year-old, was long a local crime boss and made most of his living smuggling drugs and people across borders, according to several people who knew him.

Venezuelan authorities had jailed him on human trafficking charges after a boat he had operated capsized in December 2020, killing about two dozen people, law enforcement officials said at the time. Among those who died in the crash were two of his children and a granddaughter, relatives told the AP. The AP could not determine the disposition of his criminal case, but Martínez was eventually released and returned to trafficking people and drugs, according to acquaintances.

Although they hated what he did for a living (and the control that Martínez and similar criminals exerted over their villages), several residents said they appreciated how Martínez contributed annually to the festival of the Virgin of the Valley, the patron saint of fishermen, and spent lavishly at local shops and restaurants. He also bet heavily on cockfighting, a popular pastime, a bird breeder said.

Martínez was killed, a family member and several acquaintances said, in the first known American attack, which took place on September 2. Trump quickly took to social media to claim that the ship had left Venezuela and was carrying drugs. The 11-man crew, the president said, had been members of the Tren de Aragua gang. He said all the men were killed and also posted a short video of a small boat that appeared to explode in flames.

Martínez’s relatives said they did not believe that the underworld figure was a member of that gang.

They said the Venezuelan government had not provided them with information about their fate. They found out when they found a photo of a body that had washed ashore in Trinidad. The photo had been shared on social media and messaging apps and showed a severely mutilated body. People familiar with Martínez said they knew instantly that the burly corpse was Martínez because, tied to his left wrist, was one of his most prized belongings: an ostentatious watch.

The former cadet and bus driver.

AP Illustration via AP

Dushak Milovcic, 24, was drawn to crime for the adrenaline and money, so much so that he dropped out of the country’s National Guard Academy, according to those who knew him. He started as a lookout for smugglers, they said. Although he had no experience at sea, he eventually earned a promotion to more lucrative and coveted jobs on drug trafficking ships.

It is unclear how many trips he had made before he was killed last month.

Juan Carlos “El Guaramero” Fuentes had operated a transit bus for several years, but was facing dire financial circumstances when it broke down. The government had been unable (or unwilling) to fix it. That meant he was losing money because bus drivers in Venezuela typically take a cut of the fares, making it nearly impossible for him to feed and clothe his family.

AP Illustration via AP

The villagers said they did not It was surprising that Fuentes, who had no nautical experience, resorted to smuggling to make ends meet. The high-level smugglers who normally crewed those ships had stayed grounded to avoid being attacked by American missiles. Instead, villagers said, they had increasingly been hiring rookies like Fuentes.

Fuentes told friends he had been nervous about his first smuggling trip, knowing it would be fraught with risk from the weather, rival gangs and even the U.S. military. The September voyage had gone surprisingly well, he told his friends, and he immediately agreed to join another crew. Fuentes was killed in a missile attack last month, friends said, but it is unknown which one.

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Konstantin Toropin contributed from Washington.

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This story was supported by funds from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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