The Iranian ambassador to Caracas, Alí Chegeni, recently met with members of Venezuela’s colectivos socialist paramilitary gangs, the Venezuelan outlet Cazadores de Fake News reported over the weekend.
The diplomat also participated in a socialist radio show hosted by the co-founder of a colectivo group in which calls to assassinate President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were broadcast.
Chegeni has been in charge of Iran’s embassy in Caracas since June 2025. The colectivos are armed socialist gangs originally established in the early 2000s during the rule of late dictator Hugo Chávez and then reinforced by Nicolás Maduro that directly serve the Venezuelan regime and “defend the Bolivarian revolution.” For decades, colectivo groups have directly persecuted and threatened Venezuelan dissidents and civil society, operating under a scheme of plausible deniability and apparent impunity for their actions. It is largely believed that colectivos are linked to Interior Minister and long suspected drug lord Diosdado Cabello, a man actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges.
Cazadores de Fake News (“Fake News Hunters”), an independent Venezuelan outlet, revealed on Saturday that a journalistic investigation confirmed that Chegeni met with colectivo members last week during a visit to the 23 de enero parish in Caracas — an area of the capital city which several of the most powerful and oldest colectivo groups, such as La Piedrita, operate out of.
Images circulating on social media and confirmed as real by the investigation show Chegeni next to members of the Coordinadora Simón Bolívar (CSB) colectivo group, standing in front of a pro-Palestine mural in the Caracas parish. According to the independent Venezuelan outlet, the photos — originally published by CSB on its social media accounts and then deleted — were taken on March 30, 2026, the same day the Iranian diplomat participated as a guest on “Latin America Live,” a talk show broadcast by Al Son Del 23, a socialist community radio station operating in the 23 de enero parish. Juan Bautista Contreras, a socialist former alternate member of the National Assembly and co-founder of the CSB colectivo, is the show’s host.
Contreras reportedly held an in-depth interview with ambassador Chegeni on the relations between Iran and Venezuela, the two countries’ oil industries and energy reserves, and discussions on how “U.S. sanctions are motivated solely by a desire to control the world’s oil supply.”
The radio network promoted a video of the interview on its social media accounts, but by press time the video appeared to have been set to private.
Throughout the broadcast, the outlet explained, direct calls for the assassination of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu were played and a series of antisemitic remarks and conspiracy theories against America about the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic were issued.
Minutes after the interview started, Contreras invited Chegeni to listen to a clip of Santiago Cuneo, an Argentine journalist known for his radical antisemitism and other controversial stances such as openly celebrating the death of Queen Elizabeth II. In the clip, Cuneo is heard saying, “May God take Netanyahu and Trump from this world and send them to hell.”
“May divine law prevail for the benefit of the human race and every child who is still alive and could die in the Middle East,” Cuneo says in the clip. “May the perpetrators of genocide be killed by the human race in the interest of its own survival. Two deaths could save us millions of lives. The world should realize that it is the cheaper option.”
“That’s right. By killing two people, we’d be sparing everyone from the deaths that humanity’s enemies are causing today,” Contreras asserted after listening to the clip.
Cazadores de Fake News detailed that Chegeni then claimed that Israel “attacks schools to murder girls and offer them as sacrifices to a deity named Baal.” Shortly afterwards, another unidentified guest reportedly claimed that COVID was “created and disseminated by laboratories of the U.S. ‘deep state’ with the aim of exterminating the human race.”
Other Venezuelan outlets, such as Runrunes and Tal Cual, also reported that the photos of Chegeni next to the CSB members and inside the radio booth had been originally published by CSB, which described the ambassador’s visit as an act of “anti-imperialist solidarity” and “people-to-people diplomacy.”
“The photos from the event were not leaked or obtained illegally. The official Instagram accounts of Radio Al Son del 23 and the Coordinadora Simón Bolívar openly posted around 25 different photos on the day of the event,” the outlet explained.
At press time, while CSB’s Instagram page was set to private mode, pictures of Ali Chegeni inside the socialist radio station’s booth remain publicly accessible on Al Son del 23’s Instagram page. In one such picture, the diplomat is seen next to Contreras.
“Following the meeting in the radio, the Iranian delegation, together with local groups, led a protest march along Simón Bolívar Boulevard in the iconic La Cañada neighborhood,” the original publication of the photos reportedly read.
Cazadores de Fake News also denounced that over the weekend a group of at least 23 Instagram accounts operating as fake news outlets used the organization’s graphics and imagery without authorization to publish a false denial regarding the meeting between the Iranian ambassador to Venezuela and the colectivos at the 23 de Enero Parish.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.