GÜIRIA, Venezuela (AP) — Regina Garcia Cano was the reporter behind The Associated Press’ story that provided the first comprehensive account and identifies of some of the men killed in recent U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats.

In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives told Garcia Cano the dead men had indeed been running drugs but were not narco-terrorists, as alleged by the Trump administration, or leaders of a cartel or gang.

Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. The four dead men included a fisherman, a down-on-his-luck bus driver, a former military cadet and a loc

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