Suspected narco baron González Polanco will face trial on dual charges in Venezuela

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): The suspected narco-kingpin who went by the name of Hermágoras González Polanco is on the wanted list at Interpol, the United States and a host of other countries on drug charges: He is to be tried in Venezuela for money laundering as well as drugs.

The decision was made by Judge Ana Vásquez after considering evidence presented by prosecutors. She ordered that González Polanco – whether that's his real name has yet to be established, but in the meantime it's emerged that he's nicknamed El Gordito (The Fat One) – should be held in custody.

Interior and Justice Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín said police had confirmed that the suspect had both Colombian and Venezuelan citizenship. In Vásquez' court, it was stated that he was born in 1959 in a municipality called Páez in the West Venezuelan state of Zulia, which borders on northern Colombia.

Rodríguez Chacín said that people who knew González Polanco came from circles including the police, the church, medicine and academia were being investigated, he added.

Meanwhile, further details of the man at the center of the storm emerged. One of six siblings, he inherited a ranch, La Trinchera, in Carabobo state on his father's death. He's also said to own another ranch as well as hotels and other businesses, and to have done good works in the region such as building schools, medical centers and sports grounds and financing December festivities.

Evidence of his renown and reputation in the area is said to have come when his mother, Emma Polanco, was kidnapped a couple of years back.

The gang realized who she was, and hurriedly gave her back with apologies. But González Polanco's alleged also to have applied his energies to the illegal drug trade. His career outside the law is said to have coincided in the 1990s with the violent deaths of a string of people linked to illegal narcotics. Among them was his brother Eudo, who is said to have died in a shoot-out with the police.

Another supposed associate, Libardo Parra González, was arrested in Venezuela last year and deported to Colombia, from where he was extradited to the United States. Washington has put a $5 million reward on González Polanco's head.

Although he appeared to live without being bothered by the authorities in Venezuela, elsewhere the law has been on González Polanco's trail for years. In 2002, he was convicted in his absence by a court in New Jersey of money laundering. Two years later, he was also found guilty by a court in New York, and a year after that by another court of conspiring to distribute cocaine.

Two Colombian drug cartels, La Guajira and Delta, are said to have been "absorbed" in the last five years by the González Polanco brothers' Cartel del Sol.