The Venezuelan politician, Juan Guaido, who is trying to oust Venezuela's current President, Nicolas Maduro, is being asked series of questions about his connections with an organized crime syndicate after controversial pictures of him with two Columbian gang members went public.  

What's the truth?

While talking to the press, Juan diluted the importance of the pictures in which he was standing beside two members of Rastrojos, a Columbian gang, later identified as El Brother and El Menor. 

The Rastrojos are a drug-dealing group with paramilitary starting points who work on the two sides of the Colombia-Venezuela borders. Just as the cocaine exchange, they are occupied with illicit mining, capturing for payoff and blackmail. 

The pictures that have garnered a lot of attention, were apparently taken when the engineer turned politician Juan used an illegal border crossing to go to Colombia from Venezuela's western border to be in attendance for a Live Aid concert in the town of Cucuta.

Read: Venezuela Starts Military Exercise At Colombia Border Amid Tensions

Juan stated that he took a lot of pictures when he attended the concert and it was difficult to remember as to who all asked for a picture with him. 

On Friday Venezuela's state examiner's office said it would open an examination concerning the photographs. Examiners said the pictures could cause damage to Guaidó's reputation and his nine-month mission to constrain Maduro from holding power. 

It has been said that the photographs gave a gigantic publicity triumph to Maduro's administration, which is battling off allegations of connections to liberal guerrillas and medication dealers. 

Read: Pakistan's UN Envoy Maleeha Lodhi Accused Of Corruption & Being A Thief In Fiery Confrontation

A criminal partnership?

Another senior politician by the name of  Freddy Bernal said that the photographs were confirmation of the criminal partnership between Venezuela's fundamentalist right and paramilitary and fear-based oppressor gatherings. 
In Juan's defense, his representatives said that there is no association between Juan Guaidó's break government and any paramilitary or guerrilla gathering.

Wilfredo Canizales, head of a human rights group in Cucuta, alleged that Rastrojos had closed off the border area from where Guaido has sneaked into Columbia so that no one was able to picture him crossing through paths that were illegal. Although, the photographs were distributed by Wilfredo on September 12. 

Cañizales declined to state how he had acquired the photographs or why he had chosen to distribute them yet stated that the Rastrojos are paramilitaries. They are the ones in this locale who choose who lives and who bites the dust. 

Read: Afghan Civilians Fear Trump's Taliban Move Means More Killings

Read: US President Donald Trump Announces 2020 Presidential Campaign, Pence Says He'll 'Keep America Great'