Casto Ocando

Casto Ocando is an independent investigative reporter who has developed an extensive career in Hispanic media in the United States and Latin America. Throughout his career, Ocando has specialized in topics like corruption/money laundering, drug trafficking and transnational crime in Latin America, with particular emphasis on Venezuela, where he is originally from. Ocando is the author of Chavistas In the US, an extensive investigation that covered more than a decade of the troubled dealings of the Hugo Chavez regime and its associates, in the United States. He holds a B.S. on Journalism from the University of Zulia, Venezuela. His work has been awarded by important American organizations. In 2014 he received an Emmy Award, and also an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Award for co-producing a documentary about Mexican drug lord Chapo Guzman (Chapo Guzman: Eterno Fugitivo; English version: Chapo: CEO of Crime). In 2013 he was part of the investigative team that received a Peabody Award from the University of Georgia as co-producer of the documentary Fast and Furious, about a failed federal operation to track guns sold to smugglers that went to Mexican Cartels. A year before, in 2012, a Telly Award by his work of investigative reporter in the documentary The Iranian Threat (La Amenaza Iraní en América Latina). In 2008 Ocando received the Benjamin Spears Award, issued by the Overseas Press Club of America, the oldest press club in the U.S., for his coverage of the Venezuelan Crisis for The Miami Herald. Ocando has also received the Sunshine State Journalism Award (2008), the most important in Florida, and several distinctions by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ). Between 2002 and 2010 Ocando served as an investigative journalist for The Miami Herald Media Company. Between 2011 and 2014, he worked as News Consultant and Associate Producer for Univision Media Company. Since 2014, he has been working as independent Investigative Reporter for several news and corporate outlets and firms, and in several documentary feature projects.