Oil, Crime, and the Essequibo Claim: Guyana's Risks after Maduro

Venezuela's change in leadership has left its claim to Guyana's Essequibo region unchanged: since a US military operation captured Nicolás Maduro in January, the interim government has maintained its claim to nearly 70 percent of Guyanese territory and has given no indication that it intends to abandon it.

On September 15, we interviewed Venezuelan-born security expert Johan Obdola, founder of IOSI Global, to assess the implications for Guyana, from Venezuela's political transition and Guyana's oil boom to the criminal and narcoterrorist networks already operating within its borders.

Full Interview Transcript

GELI Interviewer: Welcome to another Guyana Energy Leadership Institute expert interview. Today, we're looking at one of the most consequential shifts in the hemisphere in years: the removal of Nicolás Maduro, the arrival of a US-backed transition in Caracas, and what it all means for the country next door that's quietly becoming one of the world's most important new energy players, Guyana.

To help us make sense of it, I'm joined by Johan Obdola, one of the leading voices on security and geopolitics in Latin America, with decades of experience inside the region's hardest questions of sovereignty and state power. Johan, thanks for being here.

Johan Obdola: Thank you for having me.

GELI Interviewer: The Stabroek Block was always priced with a Venezuela risk factor built in. Now that Caracas has an interim government and Maduro's gone, has that geopolitical risk factor actually come down for operators in Guyana's waters, or are the majors still treating sovereignty risk as a long-term cost?

Johan Obdola: The risk premium has come down a little, in a very cautious way, after the United States operation to capture Maduro. However, in the short term, it really depends on what is going on with the United States' action in Venezuela and with the oil industry.

The recent agreement they signed has created a more short-term operating environment in Guyana. This operation in Venezuela did not eliminate the underlying sovereignty risk created by the territorial claim. The Venezuelan security apparatus and political structures are still very capable of reactivating the pressure, and that remains in place. The leadership in Venezuela has changed, but the architecture still survives.

The geopolitical scenario involving the United States, the interim government, and what the people in Venezuela are feeling is extremely sensitive, and it can lead to many scenarios that are not exactly the best ones.

We are projecting that, depending on the direction it takes, Venezuela might go in a direction very similar to Colombia 30 to 40 years ago. We already know, because of the presence of US military personnel in Venezuela, mostly near oil locations and sites, that the situation might escalate and have a major effect on Guyana.

GELI Interviewer: As Washington takes a more direct role in Venezuela's energy sector recovery, do you foresee global capital shifting towards Venezuelan oil fields? Or does Guyana's low-breakeven, high-grade crude retain its primary appeal?

Johan Obdola: The United States has a very unique opportunity in the oil sector. American companies have already been investing in Guyana, and now there's Venezuela, one of the major oil producers in the world. Reactivating the oil fields across Venezuela will bring some kind of equilibrium for Guyana, and companies from around the world will be interested in operating in both Guyana and Venezuela.

That said, the situation is still very uncertain from a political and geopolitical standpoint because of Venezuela. Whatever happens in Venezuela is going to affect Guyana directly. Because of this boom, Guyana is very exposed to criminal and narcoterrorist groups, as well as some dark business groups looking to invest and operate there.

GELI Interviewer: Have you seen the kind of criminal enterprises that you're speaking of? And would you say that those have moved over from Venezuela since the new government took place, or have those always been present in Guyana?

Johan Obdola: When I was in Venezuela, I was chief of counter-narcotics in Delta Amacuro and Sucre State. I worked very closely with the Trinidadian government, intelligence and military agencies, as well as other organizations and agencies from the United States, Europe, and so on. I was also in contact with the Guyanese military forces and police.

The situation is extremely sensitive. The ELN, a Colombian narcoterrorist or guerrilla group, became very powerful around 2007 to 2010 and took control of parts of Sucre, Delta Amacuro, and Bolívar states in Venezuela. They worked with the Tren de Aragua, which controls a large part of southern Venezuela, where the gold mines are.

After the operation in which El Niño Guerrero was allegedly killed in a bombing close to the Las Claritas mines, we started looking into how the Tren de Aragua, the ELN, and other criminal groups were expanding and forming alliances across Guyana. When the energy boom in Guyana started, these groups smartly established cooperation with local criminal entities.

Johan Petrica, a co-founder of the Tren de Aragua, created a group called Las 3R (Las Tres Erres) in the mining area of Tumeremo in Bolívar State, very close to the Essequibo region. They run operations in parts of Venezuela's mining sector and are also working with the ELN in Guyana. Over the last two years, the DEA has been supporting Guyanese forces in successful anti-narcotics operations in Guyana, and they have even found narco subs. But the situation is worse than that, and it's really concerning.

GELI Interviewer: Guyana has bet its whole Essequibo strategy on the ICJ, on the idea that the final ruling will settle the dispute. But a court ruling is only as good as the other side's willingness to honor it. Does the interim government in Caracas actually respect that process, or does the Essequibo claim survive any leadership change as a permanent tool in Venezuelan politics?

Johan Obdola: Well, the Essequibo claim is much older than Chavismo. What Chavismo did was turn a historical territorial claim into a much more aggressive instrument of domestic mobilization, military pressure, and regime legitimacy. The claim itself is now deeply embedded in Venezuela's political narrative. This interim regime, led by Delcy Rodríguez and her team, is the same structure with the same philosophy, and it has maintained the claim and formally rejected the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.

Caracas does not see Essequibo simply as a Maduro policy; they consider it a permanent state position. However, if a new government comes into Venezuela, what might change is the pressure. The claim will still be there, and there might be better, more diplomatic ways to deal with it. Beyond the geographical area of the Essequibo, that region will be where criminal and terrorist groups converge.

They are already there, across Georgetown. I have sources from Guyana indicating that people from the Trinidadian Tren de Aragua are there. We have identified many Venezuelans, and other criminal groups from Venezuela are also moving there. What is getting very interesting is that supplier companies for the oil industry in Guyana are actually Venezuelan companies.

I was very surprised that one of them is trying to build a hydroelectric plant, and there's a lot of controversy about that. But the situation is really conflicted. We have a perception, based on intelligence analysis, that there's already a lot of corruption in Guyana, and it comes from gold, oil, drugs, and cocaine.

Guyana should be very concerned about that and make radical changes, because they've already been infiltrated. Their natural enemy is already in their society, in the business structure, and across the jungle. So yes, the situation is extremely sensitive in that regard. And with this claim, in that situation, I don't know how it will change the dynamic. What I mean is, what will happen in scenario A, B, or C?

You have to keep in mind that, for us, the situation in Venezuela has different exits. One is whatever President Trump wants to do. What he's tried to do is say: let Venezuela have an eventual election, whatever they want to do, Chavismo and whatever, and let us keep control of security and the investment in the oil sector and other sectors, like strategic metals, in Venezuela.

That might create a scenario in which people from the hardcore revolution, criminals, and colectivos go into the jungle as an open guerrilla group, or an open resistance group, whatever they want to call it. And we have to be straight about this: they are mostly common criminals who became police. You know the story in Venezuela.

Previously, the Venezuelan regime had been provoking Guyana to see a reaction, but also to raise nationalism across Venezuela. That didn't work for the regime. So it depends on what happens in Venezuela, but the reaction to the claim will likely be diplomatic.

GELI Interviewer: You talked about the border being a point of contention. How is Guyana translating its strength in defense alignment now with the US and Brazil into permanent regional deterrence without over-militarizing its borders?

Johan Obdola: Realistically, I don't see Guyana's institutions as strong. As a comparison, Venezuela used to have one of the strongest government structures and institutions in the region, and that changed overnight, with a revolution that nobody expected, populism, or whatever you call it. Corruption was the source that really opened the door for Chavismo, or for the Bolivarian Revolution.

In the case of Guyana, this is something we need to understand. Criminal organizations include this new group, the Tren de Aragua, who are a bunch of hardcore criminals, street criminals, or whatever. They are not smart, but you can obviously see how they've been expanding across the world, including Europe. So these criminal groups, these guerrilla and narcoterrorist groups, and some other groups involved saw the opportunity and analyzed it. They did a lot of homework on the scenario of what would happen in Guyana when they saw that there was a lot of oil and a lot of business.

Before that, Venezuela used Guyana to move gold and cocaine to other destinations, and that is still happening in a big way. Now you have a lot of Cubans arriving in Guyana, working in different kinds of jobs, including domestic work, and other nationalities from South America going into Guyana as well, not only Venezuelans.

That also creates conditions. The migration itself isn't the cause, but it's a factor these criminal groups from Venezuela have been working with over the last few years. I'm even talking about Colombians operating in Venezuela, who still have their base there. So they saw that Guyana is a very easy nation to infiltrate.

They've been working on that for the last five or ten years, something like that. So you can imagine the level of concern and sensitivity over there. If the government is not straight about it, and if the United States or the international community doesn't help them somehow, eventually you will see the results of all these activities by criminal and terrorist groups.

GELI Interviewer: How have border communities in the region we're discussing, and the surrounding areas, adapted to the shift in the security environment and the change in their neighbor's government?

Johan Obdola: They've been adapting very well. Many years ago, when I was in Venezuela, I used to travel around the Essequibo border area on the Venezuelan side, patrolling, surveilling, and protecting communities.

The indigenous communities and the Criollo communities around there were very close, and they were ready. Now everything has been changing. Drug cartels have been using the indigenous communities to move drugs, cocaine, and so on. That community in the Essequibo is extremely exposed, infiltrated, and controlled. Some of them live in fear of whoever is controlling those areas.

They have adapted somehow, but the situation is not easy. It has changed dramatically in the last few years. Before the oil in Guyana, there was an illicit economy, but also a licit one, because people used to bring food, fuel, and other goods from Venezuela into the Essequibo, to those communities. After the oil, that changed. The situation is extremely sensitive for Guyana, extremely sensitive.

GELI Interviewer: For years, Guyana's value to Washington came partly from its role as a stable counterweight to Maduro's Venezuela. Now that Maduro is gone and the United States is directly invested in rebuilding Venezuela, does Guyana's strategic weight in Washington's eyes increase? Or is there a real risk that it diminishes as the United States shifts its attention toward Venezuela?

Johan Obdola: Well, I would say the answer is both. Guyana's strategic importance to the United States is increasing, but its exclusive leverage may eventually decline.

Guyana, of course, remains extremely valuable to Washington, absolutely. It's a stable energy producer, a democratic partner, a maritime security anchor, and an increasingly important source of low-cost oil outside the Middle East. It's really well positioned. But at the same time, Washington is now directly invested in stabilizing and rebuilding the Venezuelan petroleum sector.

American companies are planning major investments there, and the United States increasingly has economic, political, and energy interests on both sides of the dispute. However, Venezuela is still one of the biggest players, for geopolitical and strategic reasons. So this situation can still benefit Guyana, because Washington has a strong incentive to prevent military escalation. Conflict would threaten energy investment in both nations.

Of course, oil companies are used to working in this kind of environment, but the situation has changed dramatically in terms of what outcomes might happen and where there could be conflict. There is also a risk: the United States may prioritize Venezuelan stability, oil production, and commercial access over a confrontational policy toward the surviving Chavista structure. So Washington could become reluctant to pressure Caracas too aggressively if that pressure threatens oil production or the political arrangement supporting the transition, the so-called transition. That's what they are trying to do somehow.

So this is why Guyana should no longer base its strategic value on being the opposite of Maduro's Venezuela. Maduro is gone. But that comparative advantage is no longer enough. Guyana's long-term leverage must come from its own capacity: institutional reliability, maritime security, energy production, intelligence cooperation, and democratic stability. This is very important if they want to survive. And any business that is or will be operating in Guyana has to be aware of that.

GELI Interviewer: Given the current geopolitical environment and the state of the region, is Guyana in a position to push for stronger multilateral security agreements that would guarantee its economic boundaries and improve its economic prosperity in the region?

Johan Obdola: Yes, but at the same time, we have to be realistic. One of the things I found when I traveled across Latin America and around the world to conflict areas is the gap between the narrative, whether the government narrative or the professional narrative, and the reality on the ground. That's a very common thing.

So Guyana is at the threshold right now where they have to act, and I'm afraid it's a little hard for them, because there are a lot of implications unless they really look into a very solid structure or strategy to protect their own country from something that is already there.

I can tell you that in the last year, something my sources told me surprised me: the son of Nicolás Maduro was in Guyana. He was seen several times with business people at some of the top hotels in Georgetown, doing business.

One of the women who sometimes provides information, who used to work for an intelligence agency in Venezuela, told me that she recognized him while she was working at one of those hotels, and she approached him. They started meeting to talk at the hotel every time he came in for his meetings. He was staying at a different hotel, but he was holding his meetings at that particular one.

He just said it was for the beef business. We know it's not that. He went there a couple of times, and the woman and some other people I put on alert saw him a couple of times at different locations there. That's an indication, you know what I mean? That was last year, and it shows they've been working on something in Guyana for a long time.

GELI Interviewer: Given how the pieces are moving and how things are changing, how do you see the environment evolving? If you had to make a prediction five to ten years ahead, how do you see regional relationships and the situation in Guyana developing based on what's happening now?

Johan Obdola: I would say the oil economy and the oil industry will keep moving forward. It will keep growing and producing, and I don't see any major incidents happening there. But I think Guyana is not in a very strong position. One of the things is that we always have to be very realistic when we do analysis, looking not only at what happened before in the region or the country, but at what is happening right now.

So I think they are at a disadvantage. They have a huge enemy and a huge challenge to really pull the country forward, because what will be affected is governance, government institutions, and the security of the nation. The drug cartels, or the ELN, won't be attacking any major oil infrastructure.

However, remember that this is not only the Tren de Aragua, whose business is only money, drugs, killing, and kidnapping. It's also the ELN, and the ELN follows an ideology. So they will have the ability to carry out whatever action they want against US interests there.

So far, the situation is very active. In the next five to ten years, I think it's going to be very hard for Guyana. This is something I've been telling governments, even here in Canada: you may have limited institutions or capacity, but once criminal organizations and narcoterrorist organizations are in your country in a very deep way, it's going to be very hard to get rid of them. They might scale down, but they stay.

I was talking to some colleagues, and it was very interesting, because three or four years ago there was a meeting in Afghanistan, not in Kabul but in another part of the country, about drugs. People from the Tren de Aragua, whom we identified, people from the Sinaloa Cartel, and someone from Guyana attended.

They went there to talk to these people, not the Taliban, but drug traffickers who are very well known in Afghanistan. My source from Afghanistan, who was at that meeting, told me it was crazy. There was one man from Venezuela, and everybody was speaking English, of course. The man from Guyana was also translating, but he was part of everything, and he spoke Spanish as well. They talked about fentanyl and other drugs, though the information wasn't very detailed.

It was very general, with some specifics. And I said, "Okay, this is something: these criminal groups in Afghanistan, and this man from Guyana." Some months later, someone else from Colombia also went to Guyana for the same kind of activities, to expand into new business.

So realistically, the scenario projections are not the best. They are not the best outcome or projection, because we know how these groups operate, how they infiltrate, and how they start infiltrating everything in any country.

So yes, I think unless they are really willing to stand up and ask the Americans for help... The Americans are fully aware of it, of course. The intelligence agencies know the security challenges facing Guyana, and the situation is really bad.

So these implications, including the developing situation in Venezuela and the security challenges for Guyana, are going to create a lot of news, scenarios, and events that will be very interesting from a professional standpoint.

GELI Interviewer: That's clearly a situation with many moving parts. Thank you for joining me today. This has been a very productive and interesting conversation, and I appreciate your time.

Johan Obdola: Thank you.