The Venezuelan connection

Casto Ocando/Julio Mota

When the events occurred four years ago, Consul Livia Acosta Noguera acted as the Cultural Affairs Officer at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. Ex professors and graduates from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who pretended to be hackers or cyber-pirates managed to record several conversations where the diplomat requested information about an alleged sabotage on the United States to submit it to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

"I would like to make emphasis on what you gave me, the last thing (...) the president (Chávez) already had a look at it," the diplomat said, based on the recordings obtained by Univisión Investiga.

In another talk, Acosta commented that General Alexis López, then the head of the presidential guard, presumably provided President Chávez with the information forwarded by her from Mexico. The diplomat also asked hackers for forged information against dissidents of Chávez's government, the students elaborated.

The onslaught would be against the information technology systems of the White House, nuclear power plants and federal agencies, such as CIA, FBI, the Pentagon and the top-secret National Security Agency (NSA). Some of the meetings were held inside the Venezuelan mission in the Mexican capital city, according to the pseudo-pirates.

The students related that the story started in 2006, when young people specialized in information technology were recruited by UNAM Professor Francisco Guerrero Lutteroth to organize a cyber-attack team against US servers from Mexican territory.

One of the recruits, then student Juan Carlos Muñoz Ledo, covertly recorded the meetings when learning that the purpose of the operation was attacking targets in US territory, he told Univisión. Muñoz Ledo was also worried, he added, that, in addition to the cyber-attack, the possibility of physical attacks had been pondered.

"The objectives of the plan discussed were attacking the United States firstly in a cybernetic manner and afterwards, doing it in a physical manner. This is what both the Embassies of Iran and Venezuela particularly wanted, under the aegis of Cuba, obviously," Muñoz Ledo averred.

Muñoz Ledo incorporated other students to help document the presumed conspiracy planned from 2006 to 2010.

"The point is that I made the decision to implement an action, as it were, to substantiate all of it," commented Muñoz Ledo, 33, in an interview with Univisión from Mexico. "It was the right thing," he added.

The operations received the "blessing" of Roy Chaderton, the Venezuelan Ambassador to Mexico in 2007 and 2008, as testified by the very hackers.

The team used tiny audio microphones and hidden video-cameras in order to record dozens of hours of talks, running the risk of being captured.

The embassies of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba took the lead in the scheming, Muñoz Ledo elaborated.

Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats, the expert warranted, took a "very, very active" part in planning the attacks.

In late 2006, Venezuela would have neither diplomatic relations nor an ambassador to Mexico, following an impasse between then Mexican President Vicente Fox and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez. Nevertheless, Professor Guerrero Lutteroth included in the plot Livia Acosta, the Venezuelan Cultural Affairs Officer at that time.

According to Muñoz Ledo, the scholar opted to include Acosta for her closer ties with President Chávez. "And here she came as a direct contact with the Chávez Administration."

"Let us strike the Empire"

As testified by Nohemí Cabral, a friend of Muñoz Ledo who also engaged in the underground recordings of the plot, Acosta had access to President Chávez's security officers.

"She had a direct relationship with security people of President Hugo Chávez," Cabral told Univisión in an interview.

In one of the recorded talks, the very Acosta clarified that she had access to a high-ranking Venezuelan officer, General Alexis López.

"The defense chief, that is, the security chief, of the president is my friend," Acosta avowed to students. "And here, he is with the president, and here he goes with the president to and fro," she added. "He is called Alexis López; he is a general," she boasted.

In another recorded talk, Acosta needed to clarify that she was delivering all the sensitive information about the intended onslaught directly to the Venezuelan president.

"I would like to make emphasis on what you gave me, the last thing (...) the president (Chávez) already had a look at it," the diplomat expressed, based on the recordings.

Univisión tried to get General López's view of Acosta comments; however, there was not answer to the requests.

Nor were ever replied several e-mails and requests from Univisión seeking a version from Consul Acosta.

As appears from the recordings, a portion of the information that Acosta purported to give Chávez was highly sensitive: the passwords to access to security computer systems of nuclear power plants and arsenals in the United States.

She was also interested in retrieving the list of private companies and banks that Ambassador Ghadiri wanted to hit in retaliation for the economic and financial sanctions imposed on Iran.

In a meeting, where Muñoz Ledo informed Acosta that he had found the passwords "of any and all nuclear plants in the USA," Acosta exclaimed, "Great! You'd rather give it to me as well to send it to the president," she said in reference to Hugo Chávez.

Nuclear power plants targeted by the group included Turkey Point, in Florida, and two twin nuclear power plants in Arkansas, known as Arkansas Nuclear One.

"Livia Acosta expressed much interest in the information supplied to Dr. Ghadiri, both on the nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons," Cabral avouched. She was one of the students who managed to gain the diplomat's confidence.

In Cabral's words, Acosta was interested in an attack on the US nuclear arsenal.

"She was keenly aware of what was being sought (...) particularly at the request of the Iranian ambassador, Dr. Ghadiri, which was directly attacking the US nuclear arsenal; therefore, she fully agreed with that," Cabral asserted.

Acosta even suggested action strategies, one of the persons familiar with the plot told Univisión.

"What Livia Acosta says is 'let us strike a bit,' 'let us strike a bit for the United States to move, for it to stop believing it is almighty," declared Sara María Gómez, another student who joined Muñoz Ledo's team to substantiate the plot.

According to Gómez, the embassies both of Iran and Venezuela were willing to retrieve the passwords to access to the nuclear power plants to "directly attack security systems."

Scheming against Venezuelan opponents

But nuclear power plants were not the only target of the intended conspiracy. The plot also contemplated wreaking havoc among the servers of federal agencies, such as the National Security Agency, FBI, CIA and the White House.

"Major leagues," Acosta uttered in a chat with Muñoz Ledo, referring to a potential attack on three of the most important federal intelligence agencies.

The Venezuelan consul had a veto power on the scheming framed by Professor Guerrero Lutteroth, with the presumed advice of Cuba's intelligence services, Muñoz Ledo upheld.

"Francisco (Guerrero Lutteroth) would say: 'Well, this ought to be shown to Livia and if there is anything what she says no, that means that it is not going' (...) So, she never said no to certain operation. Why? Because she knew that the (Cuban) G2 supported Francisco," Muñoz Ledo noted.

Guerrero Lutteroth's proposals, presumably endorsed by the consul, included forging of documents to discredit Venezuelan dissidents and opponents.

For instance, the recorded talks describe the endeavors at forging "retroactive" bank transfers to prove that dissenting General Raúl Baduel was receiving money from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a bipartisan organization created to strengthen democratic institutions around the world, and from drug kingpin Hermágoras González Polanco, charged with drug traffic in the United States.

The consul specifically requested the hackers to find information about Venezuelan militaries entering Mexico to ascertain whether they had embarked upon a conspiracy against Chávez's government, for their alleged links in Miami.

"We have a little problem: incoming Venezuelan militaries and it seems they are working on a plot here in Mexico; but they come in, scheme here and leave, don't they? And I need to know who they are," Acosta required, based on the recordings.

"What I do know is that they met with some Venezuelan and have a contact person in Miami and scheme against Venezuela; I can imagine that they have the US support," she added.

Act of war?

The consul's curiosity was not limited only to the alleged anti-Chávez plotters .She was also willing to keep watch on the National Action Party (PAN), the organization of former Mexican President Vicente Fox, an outspoken enemy of Chávez.

"I would like you to get in touch with anybody inside the PAN; (to get to know) what the PAN recorded about Venezuela; what they are fabricating," she requested the university students.

The recordings give a glimpse of the close ties between Acosta and the Embassy of Iran in Mexico. In one of the talks, the cultural affairs officer at that time admitted to have met in a visit to the Mexican province with then Iran's Ambassador Ghadiri, an ambitious diplomat who would travel all over Mexico to disseminate the influence of Islam.

During one of the recorded meetings, Livia Acosta rejoiced at Ghadiri: "The Iran's ambassador is wonderful!"

To the mind of experts of the US intelligence community queried by Univisión, while the intention of Iranian diplomats does not surprise, the involvement of Venezuelan diplomats is particularly worrisome.

"It is a matter of concern that the government of Venezuela is indeed making plans against the United States," said John Kiriakou, a former agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who led the CIA counter-terrorist operations immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Kiriakou conceded that such conspiracy could be regarded as "an act of war" and "a crime" not only to the detriment of the United States, but also Mexico.

"We do not undertake such planning against the government of Venezuela," he underscored.

Kiriakou highlighted that should Venezuelans work with Iranians in such actions, it is something "even more concerning, something for which we will need to plan."

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