BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – A $15 grocery run has cost two single mothers from Colombia 48 days in jail, along with the threat of a 14-year prison sentence, as a result of a crackdown on smuggling in Venezuela that is ratcheting up tensions and highlighting growing economic distortions between the neighbours.
Jenifer Rojas and Belsy Alvarez were arrested in early September by Venezuela’s national guard walking out of a supermarket in the western city of San Cristobal with bags of rice, pasta, mayonnaise and other staples whose prices are capped in Venezuela and whose sale is restricted to the country’s residents.
Along with the cashier who rang up their purchases, they face charges of smuggling and violating the socialist government’s new law of fair prices, whose penalties include ten to 14 years in jail.
The Colombian women were let out on parole late Friday while they await trial and must now appear in court every 15 days as a condition of their release.
“In one instant my life was destroyed,” a weeping Alvarez told The Associated Press after her release. “Never in my 40 years did I think I’d be considered a criminal, locked up with murderers and drug traffickers, for going to the supermarket.”
The women’s plight isn’t an isolated case. An estimated 100 Colombians are among the nearly 1 400 people who have been arrested the past two months as part of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s effort to root out smuggling that he blames for widespread shortages.
Some of the smuggling is on an almost industrial scale, with entire towns on the Colombian side stocked with goods brought across the border. The most lucrative trade is in gasoline, which is almost free in Venezuela.
But Colombian officials contend the majority of their arrested citizens come, like Rojas and Alvarez, from working-class families who for years have been crossing the porous border to take advantage of Venezuela’s price caps.
A recent plunge in Venezuela’s currency has made the shopping excursions even more affordable.
While Maduro insists he is not targeting Colombians, his decision to close the border at night and boost security patrols has generated alarm. The mayor of Cucuta, a Colombian commercial city of 800 000 people where Venezuelans go to see how much their bolivars are really worth, urged residents this week to avoid stepping across the border, saying they face arrest.
Many Colombians might not have learned that grocery purchases can be a crime if Rojas and Alvarez’s fellow street vendors in Cucuta hadn’t raised a fuss. Rojas has a stand selling underwear while Alvarez scrapes by charging pedestrians for cell phone calls.
