Venezuelan Narco Regime Provided Over $20 Million to Fund Black Lives Matter
A new investigative report by the Washington Examiner has uncovered extensive links between Venezuela’s socialist regime and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization, raising serious questions about the movement’s funding and foreign political influences.
According to the report, the relationship traces back to late 2012, when then–Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez allegedly ordered the transfer of at least $20 million in cash to Opal Tometi, one of BLM’s three co-founders, alongside Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza.
A former senior Venezuelan official who defected from the regime told investigators he personally witnessed meetings in Caracas where Chávez’s inner circle discussed using BLM to “project the Bolivarian revolutionary project onto the streets of the United States.” The goal, the defector claimed, was to “sow chaos and division” and weaken America from within.
The same source described one of the meetings, attended by Tometi, three other American activists, and actor Danny Glover — a longtime supporter of Cuba’s and Venezuela’s socialist governments. Chávez, then dying of cancer, reportedly viewed BLM as an ideal vehicle for spreading his anti-imperialist ideology abroad.
Although BLM formally emerged in 2013 following the Trayvon Martin case, its founders have acknowledged Marxist influences. Cullors has openly described herself as a “trained Marxist,” while Tometi has publicly praised Assata Shakur, a convicted murderer living in exile in Cuba.
The Venezuelan regime’s outreach to American activists predated BLM’s founding. As early as 2006, Chávez had publicly called for creating a “fifth column” of the left within the United States to undermine its political system.
In 2015, Tometi invited Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, to an event in Harlem during the United Nations General Assembly. There, Maduro appeared on stage with Glover and a BLM co-founder, receiving a warm embrace beneath a massive portrait of Chávez. That same year, Tometi traveled to Venezuela as an election observer for the regime’s parliamentary vote—an election widely condemned by international observers for fraud. Rather than criticizing the process, Tometi praised Venezuela’s electoral system as “one of the best in the world,” calling her trip “a fulfillment of [her] duty as a global citizen.”
Critics argue that this praise ignored the human rights atrocities, economic collapse, and political repression that have devastated Venezuela. Under Maduro’s rule, police killings occur at a rate reportedly six times higher than in the United States, despite Venezuela being twelve times smaller and having banned private firearms.
The Examiner’s report connects these actions to a broader hemispheric network of Marxist movements tied to the São Paulo Forum—a coalition of leftist and authoritarian regimes across Latin America. BLM leaders have participated in its meetings, fostering relationships with governments accused of suppressing their own citizens, including Afro-Venezuelans targeted by state violence.
Meanwhile, BLM’s domestic financial practices have drawn scrutiny. The organization raised more than $90 million in 2020 alone, largely through corporate donations, while some of its leaders used funds to purchase luxury real estate and funnel money to consulting firms linked to family members. Local BLM chapters and communities affected by police violence, by contrast, reportedly received minimal support.
From a conservative standpoint, the revelations expose a deep hypocrisy: an organization claiming to stand for justice and equality allegedly aligning with regimes that oppress, censor, and murder their own people. The report argues that BLM has functioned less as a grassroots civil rights movement and more as a political tool of the Chavista regime, financed by petrodollars from a government under international sanctions for corruption and drug trafficking.
Under President Trump’s administration, which has maintained pressure on Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship for its ties to narcotics cartels and anti-American activities, there are renewed calls for a full federal investigation into the extent of foreign money funneled into U.S. activist networks.
“How much Venezuelan cash flowed into American politics?” the report asks. “And what role did major corporations—many of which donated millions to BLM—play in amplifying its reach?”
The findings suggest the $20 million Chávez directed to Tometi was not a gesture of solidarity but a calculated investment in unrest—fueling riots, destruction, and polarization inside the United States.
The Examiner concludes that this alleged alliance between BLM and Venezuela represents a direct threat to American democracy. The time, it argues, has come for full transparency and decisive action to dismantle foreign influence operations targeting the nation from within.
“American freedom,” the report warns, “is not for sale to dictators.”
About Post Author
