Published at: 23/09/2026 09:00 PM

Illegal trafficking in gold and wildlife, FAV pilots report

(El Mundo, September 14, 1993 and El Nacional, January 17, 1993)

• To help the vicious circle of illegal mining that leads to the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest, the loss of biodiversity, the mercury pollution of the Orinoco Hydrographic Basin and the extreme poverty experienced by indigenous ethnic groups, Mrs. Cecila Matos arrived by helicopter or military plane from Miraflores, accompanied by the poaching gold miner Charles Brewer Carias.
• She was the close friend or barragana of then-president Carlos Andrés Pérez, in the textual words of Luis Piñerúa Ordaz.
• “El Barraganato ” was an institution that governed Venezuela for two presidential terms, denounced by the vehement Piñerúa, in his capacity as official spokesperson for the Court of Ethics and Partisan Discipline for Democratic Action (AD).
• But in this particular case, Cecilia Matos, to get rid of her uncomfortable accuser and phlegmatic party partner, used the innocent façade of the NGO Foundation for the Aid of the Peasant and Indigenous Family (FUNDAFACI) in partnership with the miner Brewer Carías.
• Philanthropic, “non-profit” foundation, created to provide medical assistance, in addition to free social assistance, to peasant and indigenous populations forgotten in remote Venezuelan jungles and savannas, through which gold ingots and specimens of native species of our fauna and flora were smuggled, priced at a high price in international markets.
• In the secret flight plans ordered by Mrs. Matos, the aircraft were supposedly to return to Caracas with “seriously ill” indigenous people and sealed metal boxes with blood samples for laboratory analysis.
• But, oddly enough, the metal boxes, properly sealed, brought only gold. No sick indigenous people were among the passengers on board.
• This activity of smuggling gold and wildlife, which was already known to the public, was then denounced by officers of the Venezuelan Air Force (FAV), Lieutenant Colonels Luis Reyes Reyes, William Fariñas, Luis Manuel Jatar and Wilmar Castro Soteldo. Soldiers belonging to the civic-military insurrection of November 27, 1992.
• Regarding the seriously ill indigenous people and peasants, upon returning from each trip, Mrs. Matos concluded that, “they were in such a poor state of health, that it was better to let them die on their land”.
• On no flight was it recorded that any person belonging to a particular indigenous ethnicity received free medical assistance or social assistance.
• On the contrary, there are records and complaints about armored ice axes, filled with gold and specimens of wildlife and aquatic fauna, threatened with extinction, valued in thousands of dollars.
• The names of a group of scientists who infiltrated these flights were also recorded, brought from abroad to gather information about medicinal plants and species of local botany with healing powers pertaining to the knowledge accumulated over centuries by our original inhabitants.
• The truth is that the president of FUNDAFACI was never seen rescuing sick Indians in the Orinoco Delta, in the Guiana jungles or south of the Edo. Hurry up. What was certain is that on each trip the aircraft returned loaded with gold.
• Indeed, during the 90s, most Venezuelan gold was illegally extracted to international black markets through refining centers located in the Caribbean Islands, Brazil and Colombia.
• It is estimated, according to official figures from the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), that by then nearly 32 tons of gold were being produced annually, of which 12 were recorded on the BCV's balance sheets and 20 were illegally stolen by local mafias, as in the present case, through the camouflage of FUNDAFACI.
• A subsequent analysis of the indigenous policies of the Venezuelan State and the actors responsible for them revealed that “these NGOs only contributed to justifying the penetration of the jungle territory of ethnic groups close to the borders between Brazil and Venezuela, with the purpose of expropriating and exploiting natural resources, placing these indigenous people at the most tragic time in their history.”
• This complaint was made by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), based in the United States.
• Matos and his partner, the miner Brewer, using the omnimodal but not eternal power of FUNDAFACI, managed to steal as yet unquantifiable quantities of gold, until Carlos Andrés Pérez was tried for embezzlement, Matos went into self-exile and the horrendous massacre of the Yanomami Indians took place in the village of Haximu in 1993, at the hands of hordes of prospectors financed by traffickers.
• In addition to all these, Brewer Carías was already widely known for practicing stealth or illegal mining in the Ventuari River and in the then Amazon Federal Territory.

Mazo News Team