Published at: 12/11/2025 09:00 PM

(Clarín, November 1 to 7, 1963)

• At the end of the government of Rómulo Betancourt, in September 1963, an armed gang was formed to exterminate students and left-wing militants at the headquarters of the government of Caracas.
• This police command was made up of the cabillers Rubén Charlita Muñoz, Lucas Castillo and Juan Herrera, under the direction of Governor Alejandro Oropeza Castillo.
• The gang included 25 trusted officials who spearheaded the police killings, known as “The Black Cobra”.
• The Black Cobra included Ernesto Echenagucia, Ernesto Sucupana, Cleofe Sojo and commissioner Atahualpa Montes. They toured the neighborhoods of Caracas to draw up the lists of opposition militants and presumed revolutionary leftist activists, and then go after them.
• Thus, to close his term of office with a flourish, Rómulo Betancourt closed his last month of government administration with a bloodbath in Caracas.
• In the first weeks of November 1963, the victims were:
  • Néstor Toledo Mijares, a medical student, was initially kidnapped and disappeared for four weeks by The Black Cobra. He finally appeared on November 3, shot in El Junquito, 500 meters from the Niño Jesús neighborhood.
  • Lucio Ledezma, 15, on the night of November 6, with his arms raised and against the door of his house, located in La Vuelta de La Auyama, La Pastora, was shot with a machine gun blast by police officers under the command of the central command of The Black Cobra.
  • Jesús Armando Rodríguez, 16, was shot to death on the night of November 6 in front of Block 29 of the Tablitas City Urbanization. He belonged to the Los Tigritos baseball team, was studying for the third year at the Industrial Technical School (ETI) in Los Chaguaramos and all the evidence suggests that he was shot down by the command of The Black Cobra.

Mazo News Team