Published at: 27/08/2025 09:00 PM

(El Nacional, August 26-27, 1967 and ÉLITE, September 9, 1967)

• At noon on August 25, 1967, a commission of 60 officers from the General Directorate of Police (DIGEPOL) shot down Luis Fernando Vera Betancourt “Commander Plutarco”, 25, and Eleazar Fabricio Aristigueta “El Loco Fabricio”, 30, through an action led by Commissioner General Mateo Huizi, in the House No. 111, Bolívar Street in the El Nazareno neighborhood of Petare.
• The reporters from El Nacional and Élite recorded the more than 1,000 bullet wounds in the house where the victims lived, all carried out by the political police of Democratic Action (AD), from outside.
• Likewise, these two media were able to verify that both were unarmed and that, during the assault, Vera Betancourt managed to write, with her own blood on the wall, a message clarifying what happened: “I am wounded and surrendered... I am unarmed. Don't kill me.”
• Once inside the house, the officials shot Vera Betancourt and Aristigueta in cold blood, who received multiple bullet wounds, despite not having weapons and offering no resistance.
• In the photos released by the media, it was possible to verify that the Digepoles planted a machine gun wielded by the barrel on Vera Betancourt's body, which clearly shows that it was placed after her death, for a photo for propaganda purposes.
• Commander Plutarco was internationally recognized for his courage in the so-called “Operation Van Troi”, executed on October 9, 1964.
• Operation Van Troi constituted the resounding kidnapping of the Second Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and attaché of the US embassy in Venezuela, Colonel Michael Smolen. This was intended to prevent the announced shooting of the communist leader Nguyen Van Troi in Vietnam.
• The operation of the revolutionary command was intended to exchange Smolen for the young Vietnamese leader Van Troi, who after 11 months of being subjected to horrible torture was shot.
• However, this prisoner exchange operation had such global resonance that the U.S. government ordered the lackey and dragged government of Raúl Leoni to be executed.
• Both in the massacre of the Perito Building, in Chacao, and in the one committed in the El Nazareno neighborhood, Adolfo Meinhart was the only one who knew the directions and was the one who guided patrols to those homes to commit the crime.
• Among the thugs who entered the house firing machine gun bursts, was the whistleblower and fugitive Carlos Núñez Tenorio “Luisito”.

Mazo News Team