Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace Diosdado Cabello ordered an investigation into a social media campaign about alleged robberies, which he believes “are being carried out to blame Venezuelan returnees.”
“I have ordered an in-depth investigation because we have seen on social media some girls saying: ‘I was just robbed, and the same thing happened to my cousin in such and such a place.’ Others say, ‘I was standing on a corner and I was robbed.’ But when they check with the CICPC (Criminal Scientific Investigations Corps), there are no reports. So we are looking for those people to file their reports,” said Cabello during his “Con el Mazo Dando” (Hitting with the Hammer) program.
He asserted that “there are cameras everywhere» recording what happens during the day, for the safety of citizens, and that they can be decisive in solving these alleged robberies.
He emphasized that this is a campaign linked to the «commanditos» (small gangs) “to stir up fear in the population and make people believe that those arriving from abroad are the ones committing the criminal acts.»
«I don’t know if anyone will commit crimes, but anyone who commit a crime, will be catched by us, and with the same affection and love we will put in the handcuffs, and they will go to court,» asserted Cabello.
On March 28, Cabello denounced that an attempt is being made to generate a public opinion about an alleged increase in crime to blame the Venezuelan migrants arriving in the country.
During the tenth edition of the «Sin Truco Ni Maña» (Without Tricks or Knacks) podcast, he explained alongside Representative Tania Díaz that the sectors promoting this opinion matrix say that «they are not wanted in the neighborhoods.»
«They want to create a matrix, without any evidence, that ‘robberies have increased in my neighborhood’. Who did they rob? No one, but they ‘increased’ (…) They’re trying to blame things that aren’t happening on those who are arriving because they even say they don’t want them in the neighborhoods,» he warned.