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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14442">https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14442</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Venezuelan Government Announces Arrests
over Electrical Blackouts</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Paul Dobson - April 24,
2019<br>
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<p>Merida, April 24, 2019 (<a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/">venezuelanalysis.com</a>)
– Venezuelan authorities have arrested five
people in connection with the recent
electrical outages in the country,
Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez told
press Tuesday.</p>
<p>Among those arrested is Otoniel Ramos
Sanchez, ex-director of automatization,
technology, information and
telecommunications at one of the
subsidiaries of state-run electrical
corporation CORPOELEC in Bolivar State,
where the electrical problems of<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14374">
March 7-12</a> and <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14404">March
25-29</a> originated. Ramos Sanchez had
allegedly been suspended by CORPOELEC two
years ago.</p>
<p>“The investigations concerning the cyber
attacks in the Guri Hydroelectric Complex
[in Bolivar State] are advancing,” Rodriguez
told reporters. “[Sanchez] has been charged
already, is currently answering questions
and has given us a lot of information about
his accomplices,” he went on to say.</p>
<p>Venezuela’s government claim that the
initial national blackout of March 7, which
left some parts of the country without power
for as long as five days, was a<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14374">
result of a sophisticated cyber attack</a>
against Guri’s automatized system, allegedly
originating from the US cities of Houston
and Chicago.</p>
<p>The<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14404">
second major outage</a>, which started on
March 25, was blamed by Venezuelan
authorities on a sniper, who allegedly
caused an explosion and fire in the Guri
Dam’s switchyard. The Guri Dam currently
supplies over 70 percent of Venezuela’s
electricity. President Maduro was quick to
blame “US imperialism” for both of the
attacks.</p>
<p>Apart from the five arrests, Rodriguez
indicated that a further fourteen people
have been implicated in the attacks, and are
currently being sought by authorities.</p>
<p>Among those named by the minister are Julio
Acuña Núñez, who is believed to have fled to
the USA, Ramon Garcia, who reportedly lives
in Spain, and Miguel Angel Freitas, who
allegedly works for a cybersecurity firm in
Colombia. Rodriguez also drew special
attention to Jesus Landoni, claiming he left
Venezuela on April 8 en route to the US and
currently lives in a US Air Force official’s
house. Landoni was in charge of security at
the Guri Complex at the time of the
blackouts.</p>
<p>“There are Interpol arrest warrant requests
issued for those people implicated in the
attack, who live in the US, Colombia and
Spain,” Rodriguez informed.</p>
<h3>Electrical grid close to ‘lasting
equilibrium’</h3>
<p>The repair work on the country’s electrical
grid has seen workers from a range of other
public industries<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14409">
flock</a> to Bolivar State to provide
assistance. Rodriguez vowed that the system
is now more stable and is “close to a long
lasting equilibrium.”</p>
<p>He also denounced 45 smaller attacks
against electrical infrastructure since
March 7. Since 2017, the grid has also had
to deal with 280 deliberate forest fires set
close to transmission lines and attacks
against 50 percent of the substations, he
added.</p>
<p>Following the blackouts,<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14415">
electricity rationing</a> has been applied
to many parts of Venezuela and the
electrical grid has struggled to return
service to the entire country. Western
states such as Barinas and Zulia continue to
suffer day-long blackouts on a regular
basis, exasperating existing problems in<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14380">
public transport</a>, water pumping
systems, rural irrigation systems, commerce,
industry, and other areas.</p>
<p>Venezuela’s electric grid has suffered from
years of underinvestment, poor maintenance
and brain drain, with US-led <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14434">sanctions
</a>compounding problems by making it
difficult to acquire repair parts and
service equipment. US <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14268">sanctions
</a>have also led to <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14135">fuel
shortages</a> which reportedly stopped
backup thermoelectric plants from being
brought online. It has been<a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14425">
estimated</a> that the March blackouts
cost the economy US $2.9 billion, or 3.3
percent of Venezuela’s GDP.</p>
<h3>Russia points the finger at the US</h3>
<p>Russian authorities are assisting in the
investigation of the two major blackouts,
and indicated this week that they agree with
the Venezuelan government’s assertion that
the US government is behind the outages.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.rt.com/news/457242-moscow-security-conference-sovereignty-threats/">Speaking</a>
to Russia Today on Monday, Russian Deputy
Defence Minister Alexander Fomin claimed
that “[An] operation called 'Blackout' is
underway, a man-made shutdown of energy
facilities, which also negatively affects
the atmosphere in the country and only
aggravates the existing crisis, mainly the
economic crisis.”</p>
<p>“[Washington] does not sit idly and is
employing other tactics including a broad
range of techniques developed for hybrid
wars and colour revolutions,” he went on to
explain.</p>
<p>Fomin also blamed Washington for training
violent anti-government elements and
applying economic pressure via unilateral
sanctions. In his judgement, however, the
attacks will be unsuccessful, and will only
“unite more people around the Venezuelan
government."</p>
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