As many as 100,000 Cubans have arrived in Venezuela in the past three years, most of them illegally, according to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry. The Venezuelan government has expressed ``concern and alarm'' over the apparently indiscriminate granting of entry visas to Cubans.

``It's an approximate figure, but it's close to reality, because the Cuban community in this country has grown like you can't imagine,'' a Foreign Ministry official told The Herald on Thursday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the principal irregularities involve Cubans who overstay their tourist visas or submit forged documentation. ``We even discovered that one of our diplomats at the embassy in Havana was involved in the sale of phony visas,'' the official said. The price ranged from $3,000 to $5,000 each, he added.

The diplomat was expelled from the foreign service last year but was not tried, the official said.

The sale of visas has recurred in recent months and ``it is possible that some corrupt Cuban officials are involved,'' he said.

The Venezuelan government is investigating a report that hundreds of Cuban passports have been smuggled into Venezuela to be stamped with official visas, then returned to Cuba and distributed. ``Apparently, there is a network that brings [the passports] to this country and later distributes them on the island once they're stamped,'' the official said.

Leaders of Venezuela's Cuban community question the Foreign Ministry's estimate.

``That's an absurd figure,'' said Pedro Perez Castro, who has lived in Caracas for 18 years. ``Where are those 100,000 Cubans living? Not even in the 1980s were that many Cubans living in Venezuela.''

The early 1980s saw a massive exodus of Cubans to the United States and other countries.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald