The man who might testify against ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is known as “el Pollo,” or “the Chicken.” His wanted poster from the United States government lists his height as five-foot-three. His weight, 130 pounds. His hair, “bald.”
The nickname belies his resume: former General Hugo Carvajal Barrios was once Venezuela’s head of military intelligence, the equivalent of J. Edgar Hoover for the Hugo Chávez regime. In 2025, he pleaded guilty in federal court to drug trafficking and narcoterrorism charges.
Now, as Maduro awaits trial on federal narco-terrorism charges in a Brooklyn jail, a letter Carvajal sent to US President Donald Trump in December may signal that the ex-spy…