By Le Figaro with AFP
Published on 03/24/2023 at 21:39
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Carlos Enrique Gomez Rodriguez in Caracas, February 13, 2013. AFP
“El Conejo” (the rabbit), leader of a criminal gang who has been wanted for months and for whom authorities have offered a million-dollar reward, has been killed, Venezuela’s Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos said.
“Carlos Enrique Gomez Rodriguez, aka “El Conejo” (…), wanted for crimes of terrorism, extortion, kidnapping, murder and other crimes, was killed,” Ceballos said in a statement released by public television.
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Actively searched for months
Gomez Rodriguez was the leader of a dangerous gang, known by the pseudonym of its leader, that operated in the north-central state of Aragua. He owed his nickname to his imposing incisors, according to a source close to the police. The minister did not provide specific details on how “El Conejo” was “killed”, but he indicated that the latter had died after an operation that had lasted “several months” across the country, particularly in Aragua state.
Law enforcement also arrested “36 criminals”, seized “16 firearms, war material, portable radios, motorcycles and telephones”. “El Conejo” had been actively searched for over a year, and his head was valued at $1 million – just over 186,000 Venezuelan minimum wages – in February after gun battles with police.
In February 2022, another organized gang leader, Carlos Luis Revette aka “El Koki”, an ally of “El Conejo”, was also killed. He was the subject of a $500,000 reward. Venezuela is the most violent country in Latin America, alongside Honduras, with nearly 11,000 violent deaths between 2021 and 2022, according to the Venezuelan Observatory for Violence (OVV), an NGO that cites in the absence of official figures.