11 arrested linked to the explosion at the Muscar gas pipeline

Eleven people were arrested in Venezuela for their alleged responsibility in the explosion of the largest gas distributor in the country, registered last week, reported this Monday the Minister of Petroleum, Delcy Rodríguez, who indicated that a foreigner accused of these events fled on the day of the incident.

In a statement broadcast by the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), the executive vice president also reiterated that the explosion was due to a “terrorist attack,” with which she linked opposition leader María Corina Machado and other anti-Chavismo leaders, although without specifying their names.

«11 people responsible for these criminal acts have been deprived of liberty and are under investigation. “There is a foreigner (…) he left the country the same day he caused this malicious maneuver,” said the minister, who did not give details about his nationality or the identities of those arrested.

Arrested for the explosion

It was – Rodríguez insisted – an “attack on the heart of the gas producer in Venezuela”, since the facility where the explosion occurred, which left five workers from the state oil company PDVSA injured, distributes 80% of these fluids to the country.

He added that in the placelocated in the state of Monagas (northeast), the incident was motivated by an action – which was not explained – by an external company, without mentioning its name, together with already identified “internal accomplices”.

The Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, reported that there are 11 detainees for “criminal acts” that generated an explosion and fire at the Muscar Operational Complex in Punta de Mata, in the state of Monagas. pic.twitter.com/Z1c1fXn2Kd

— Darvinson Rojas Sánchez (@DarvinsonRojas) November 18, 2024

The objective of this attack, he reiterated, is to affect oil and petrochemical production, as well as the work in the conglomerate of state metallurgy companies and to harm the electrical service, mainly in the east of the country, where several blackouts have been recorded in the last week.

They are “extremist factors that seek to derail our country from its good path, that seek to attack economic development, against economic growth, that seek to deprive our population of essential services, such as electricity, fuel, gas in a “truly macabre and perverse plan,” he said.