Venezuela Has A Massive Crime Problem That Is Out Of Control

Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Bart P. Schut, Daily Beast: As Elections Approach, Venezuela Is a Crime Scene Out of Control


Cops are among the first to die in a country with the second highest murder rate in the world.

CARACAS — It didn’t matter to officer Kevin Valera that his new love, Jenniree, already had a daughter, he had always wanted to have children. So he treated little Ashley like his own and to her he simply was daddy. Then Kevin and Jenniree had a baby boy in February this year.

On September 17th, after going out for groceries, the couple came home to El Cementerio, an ominously named slum in the western part of Caracas. Jenniree had little Kevin Alexander in her arms. The couple paid no attention to the strange quiet of the street as they entered their house.

The malandros were waiting for them, seven or eight strong, Jenniree isn’t sure. Two of the gang members pointed their guns at her and took her into the bedroom while the others talked to Kevin. “I couldn’t make out what they were saying to him,” she recalls. “All I heard was him yelling: ‘Take whatever you want and leave.’

WNU Editor: As bad as the crime may be in your community .... there are places in the world that makes the worst place in the U.S. look like paradise.