🚨🇻🇪🚤 THREAD: No, there were not "innocent fishermen" on that boat On Sept 2, a U.S. strike destroyed a go-fast…

🚨🇻🇪🚤 THREAD: No, there were not "innocent fishermen" on that boat On Sept 2, a U.S. strike destroyed a go-fast leaving San Juan de Unare, Sucre. Some on social media are pushing the "poor fishermen" line. This thread unpacks why that narrative doesn't hold water (no pun intended). 🧵 👉 Origin: Unare = entrenched cartel hub (Tren de Aragua / Tren del Llano). 👉 Destination: Pre-programmed GPS to Trinidad, a narco transshipment leg. 👉 Vessel: 12m "flipper," 4×200HP outboards. No fisherman runs that setup. 👉 TTPs: Multi-boat launch, jettisoned cargo, night run. Classic narco playbook. 💡 Families in Unare themselves admitted these men had "entered that world" for pay. Stay tuned, I'll walk through the receipts.

The boat was a "flipper" designed to outrun law enforcement, typical in drug smuggling configuration, and Sun Juan de Unare is dominated by drug trafficking.

Even in Unare itself, no one pretends the crew were innocent. Local social media tributes openly mourn them as "fathers of family... who enter that world only out of necessity." In other words: these men were indeed involved in drug smuggling... because poverty left them few other options.

The boat was operating at night. Local reports say that before the US military approached them, they jettisoned cargo.

Drugs are not the only thing that Tren de Aragua smuggles. They have been implicated in trafficking migrants to the United States. But Unare is specifically known for drug trafficking.

Fishing villages along Venezuela’s eastern coast have become prime targets for cartels because of their proximity to the Caribbean islands. Cocaine flows in from Colombia, and gangs such as Tren del Llano and Tren de Aragua fight to dominate the maritime routes across to Trinidad and other islands... the first stop on a chain that ultimately carries drugs into U.S. markets.

Maduro says the U.S. strike video was "AI generated" and insists Tren de Aragua was dismantled years ago. Funny thing though… somehow U.S. courts keep indicting fresh TdA members in 2024 and 2025. Either we’re prosecuting ghosts, or Caracas is lying through its teeth.

Our intelligence agencies have stated plainly that Maduro is not coordinating with Tren de Aragua or other gangs. Marco Rubio flatly rejects that assessment. And just last week, Tulsi Gabbard removed the senior IC officials who authored that assessment.

A Venezuelan journalist who specializes in Tren de Aragua estimated the boat’s cocaine load at roughly $120 million in street value. And it wasn't the only vessel that night; according to his sources, two other drug-laden boats left Unare just before it and slipped through undetected.

The administration's focus on Tren de Aragua didn't come out of nowhere. In February, the US government designated cartels as FTOs (foreign terrorist organizations) and Bessent started sanctioning their leaders in July.

Why weren’t cartels labeled as Foreign Terrorist Organizations earlier? Honestly, I don’t know the full answer. But I did find one interesting explanation: giving cartels an FTO label could legally expose migrants who pay them for passage to being treated as if they had provided “material support to terrorism.” In other words, the designation punishes migrants right alongside the cartels.

The average Venezuelan income is $60-65 a month. Typical fishing boats are Pinero boats and Panga-style skiffs. By contrast, the motors on the Venezuelan boat that got blown up would have cost around $20,000 ... each.

What makes this strike stand out is how far it veered from the usual playbook. Normally, U.S. forces intercept, board, and seize. Rubio flatly said: "intercepting no longer works." My read: the U.S. wants the blast itself to serve as the message, a shockwave meant to rattle the cartels far louder than another routine seizure ever could.

In conclusion: that boat was a cartel flipper, crewed by men running cocaine. The locals admit it. The intel shows it. The tactics prove it. All the hand-wringing you see online is gaslighting. Notice the same voices stayed silent for decades while Washington meddled in South America, but suddenly they find their outrage now? Spare me.

Wow. The trolls are out in force on this thread. Even the Muslim Brotherhood threads don't get this many. That tells me something. When you expose the truth about cartel networks, you're poking at some very powerful interests. And judging by the swarm, plenty of people are furious that their days of doing business with these gangs may be numbered.

There's been a lot of debate over why the boat carried 11 people. That's unusual; typical go-fast crews run 2–6 at most. Some have speculated terrorism. IMO: the vessel was moving recruits along with cargo. Trinidad and Tobago is only a couple of hours away, and among the passengers was the son of the boat's owner, a man locally known for organizing drug routes.