Transcript: Venezuela votes for a land grab in Guyana

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Venezuela votes for a land grab in Guyana’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, December 5th. And this is your FT News Briefing.

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Conservatives have unveiled a plan to stop hundreds of thousands of people from migrating to the UK, and Venezuela wants to snatch up most of its neighbour, Guyana.

Michael Stott
So this is an old Venezuelan claim to the territory but in recent years it has largely been dormant, and Maduro has revived it.

Marc Filippino
Plus, the FT’s Hot Money podcast is back for season two. We will talk about cocaine, murder and a massive European drug cartel. I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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The UK government announced plans yesterday to cut immigration by 300,000 people each year. The idea is to make it harder for companies to hire people from other countries. Employees right now need to make a certain amount of money in the UK to get a skilled worker visa, and the government wants to raise that minimum to nearly £39,000 per year. Net migration hit a record high in 2022, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under a lot of pressure to address it ahead of next year’s election.

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Venezuela might be on its way to annexing its neighbour. The country is trying to lay claim to nearly two-thirds of Guyana. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his government said that voters supported the move in a referendum on Sunday. Guyana is a former British colony that has been arguing with Venezuela over its borders for more than a century. I’m joined now by the FT’s Latin America editor Michael Scott. Hey, Michael.

Michael Stott
Hey, Marc.

Marc Filippino
So, Michael, tell me a little bit more about this referendum. What was the context here?

Michael Stott
So I think this was a giant exercise in trying to distract the Venezuelan people, Marc. Nicolás Maduro faces re-election next year. He’s not very popular president. There’s an opposition candidate, María Corina Machado, who’s been gathering momentum. And Maduro wants to distract voters with the prospects of something glorious, like the chance to recover a large chunk of territory which he says was unfairly taken from them. So he’s been waging a big campaign over the past month to encourage Venezuelans to vote, to tell them this is a historic moment for the country. This is a way he sees for himself to wrap himself in the flag, to look popular, to look like he’s taking up something which Venezuelans feel is rightfully theirs.

Marc Filippino
So, Michael, what were some of the questions that voters answered on this referendum on Sunday?

Michael Stott
So there were five questions on the ballot for the voters. And the idea was that they had to reject the jurisdiction of the international court to rule on the matter, whether they thought the territory should become a Venezuelan state and its residents granted citizenship. They were really five different ways of asking the same question, which was whether voters think they should be part of Venezuela. Venezuela claimed an overwhelming victory in this referendum for its claim to a big chunk of Guyana. But there are some real questions about how many people actually voted.

Marc Filippino
And why is this going on now, Michael, aside from the fact that Maduro was trying to clinch a win before next year’s election?

Michael Stott
One of the reasons is that Guyana has discovered a lot of oil offshore, one of the world’s biggest offshore oil discoveries of recent years, the Stabroek block, which is currently being exploited by an American oil company, Exxon, is operating the block, and that block is part of the territorial waters claimed by Venezuela.

Marc Filippino
So what do you think, Michael, is Venezuela actually going to try and annex this big chunk of Guyana?

Michael Stott
There are some very big obstacles to Venezuela actually launching any military action. So this is a largely unpopulated, remote, mountainous jungle sort of area. There are very few roads, very few towns or settlements. It’s not an easy area to send people into. But what we shouldn’t forget is that Nicolás Maduro is not very popular. So some people are drawing a parallel with what happened in the 1980s when you had the Argentine military junta at the time, which was looking for a distraction from its own unpopularity. They started sabre-rattling and threatening about the Falkland Islands, and people thought they would never do anything so stupid as to invade, and then they actually did invade. They sent military forces and conquered the Falkland Islands, and of course, triggered the war with the UK. So never say never, I would say.

Marc Filippino
Michael Scott is the FT’s Latin America editor. Thank you, Michael.

Michael Stott
Thanks, Marc.

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Marc Filippino
The White House says US funding for Ukraine will run out by the end of the year. That means the American government won’t have money to give Ukraine more weapons and supplies. President Joe Biden has asked for more than $100bn in emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific. But it’s up to Congress to approve it. Right now, Republicans want that funding tied to more money for US border security. There have been talks to try and find a bipartisan solution, but those negotiations seem to be at a bit of a stalemate.

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Last year, the FT launched an investigative podcast called Hot Money. The eight-part series uncovered the secret history of the online pornography industry, as well as the shadowy power structures and financial institutions that have shaped it. Now, the show is back with a second season, Hot Money: The New Narcos, tells the story of the rise of a European super cartel. Here to talk to me about it is Miles Johnson. He’s an investigative journalist at the FT, and he’s hosting this season of Hot Money. Hey, Miles.

Miles Johnson
Hi. Thanks for having me.

Marc Filippino
So, Miles, season two takes on an entirely different industry, not pornography, the cocaine industry. Tell me a little bit about that.

Miles Johnson
Yes. So I think something which many people don’t realise is that over the last sort of 15, 20 years, there’s been this sort of explosion in specifically the European cocaine industry. So people traditionally think of people like Pablo Escobar or El Chapo Guzmán, these sorts of like, you know, very infamous Latin American kind of cartel bosses. But what we’ve seen in the last decade or so in Europe is a rise of these really powerful European organised criminal groups which have started to make sort of, you know, hundreds of millions, billions from cocaine flooding into Europe. So it’s become a really big business story, but it’s a story that we don’t normally read about in the sort of pages of places like the FT.

Marc Filippino
Can you tell me a little bit about the story, some of the details that you uncovered? Of course, without spoilers.

Miles Johnson
So this story, it begins with a wedding, which is in Dubai in 2017. And it’s in this hotel called the Burj Al Arab, which is one of the most expensive and luxurious hotels in the world. And the person who’s getting married that day is this Irish businessman. And he’s invited all of these guests. And the guests are from all around the world, and they all are his sort of business partners. But what they don’t know is that at that wedding is an undercover informant working for western law enforcement, because actually, that wedding isn’t just a wedding. It’s this meeting of what will come to be known as the Dubai super cartel, which is an organisation which European law enforcement, by around 2017, 2018, believes has seized control of a third of Europe’s cocaine market.

Marc Filippino
A third?

Miles Johnson
A third. So this is really a business worth billions and billions a year.

Marc Filippino
Well, that clearly surprised me. What were some of the overarching themes or aspects that surprised you when you were reporting the series, Miles?

Miles Johnson
I think one of the most shocking things about this story is that there were these groups of organised criminals who were from Europe but not based in Europe anymore, who were able to order the murder of almost anyone anywhere using encrypted phones, you know, whether these sort of people who were known to the police as quote unquote murder brokers where they would kill people for money, but they would do it in a way where you could order these murders, almost like someone would order a pizza or something off Amazon. And it was really deeply shocking, not just to me, but at the time, the police who were investigating this stuff were really surprised because no one was really aware that it had got this bad.

Marc Filippino
Miles Johnson is an investigative journalist and the host of Hot Money: The New Narcos, which comes out today. We’ve put the first episode in our feed and you can listen right now. Thanks so much for your time, Miles.

Miles Johnson
Thank you so much for having me.

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Marc Filippino
You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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