Fernando A Martinez
[email protected]
The U.S. government is particularly interested in the role of certain operators identified as closely linked to Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman detained in the United States and considered one of the main fronts for Nicolás Maduro.
These individuals include Alessandro Bazzoni, an Italian national, and Joaquín Leal Jiménez, a Mexican citizen, both of whom are also identified as trusted associates within Tareck El Aissami’s circle.
Both Bazzoni and Leal were sanctioned in 2021 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (OFAC). Federal investigators determined that following Saab’s detention in June 2020, Bazzoni took over Saab’s role in coordinating PDVSA’s crude oil resale operations and supplying vessels to collect crude from Venezuelan ports.
Leal, for his part, managed the buying and selling of Venezuelan-origin crude, facilitating transportation and resale to buyers, in clear violation of U.S. sanctions, through the company Libre Abordo S.A., at inflated prices.
For these operations, Bazzoni and Leal partnered with various individuals and companies, notably Greek citizens George Moundreas and Panagis Zissimatos, along with Italian Erik Roveta, a broker who serves as a technical manager and owns several companies such as Sernavimar SRL and Axione Chartering OU, among others, to manage and operate the ships and transport crude and refined products to China and other markets.
Other associates of this group include Swiss national Phillipp Apikian from Swiss Oil Trading SA based in Geneva, also under U.S. sanctions, and Mexican financier José Luis Chávez, who was responsible for collecting and facilitating payments for the corruption scheme and mobilized resources estimated at over $8 billion through his company Walker International DWC LLC, based in Dubai.
Four additional companies – Schlager Business Group SdRL, Cosmo Resources PTE Ltd, Delta Group Ltd, and United Petroleum Corp. – were used for the oil-for-food exchange operation orchestrated by Alex Saab and Álvaro Pulido. It is estimated that between 2019 and 2022, over 50 million barrels of crude and refined products were traded in this fraudulent business scheme, valued at approximately $5 billion.
Following Alex Saab’s capture, Bazzoni, Leal, and their group of partners became protected agents of Tarek El Aissami, alongside a significant organization controlled by regime military officials, led by Colonel Antonio Pérez Suárez, Vice President of Trade and Supply at PDVSA.
However, El Aissami was not the only one maintaining protected operators in the Venezuelan international oil business. Information released by AFP and Reuters shows how Diosdado Cabello and the Rodríguez brothers – Delcy and Jorge – held a substantial share in the corruption scheme, employing operators with little or no experience in the oil business.
For instance, Miguel Silva, an operator protected by Cabello, was linked to the firms Misil Group Ltd and Grupo Iveex Insaat.
The businesses of Silva and Bazzoni benefited both him and his protector, but one of the last major operations unexpectedly failed. This event served as a catalyst for the investigations by the Anti-Corruption Police and triggered the current “mafia war” surrounding corruption.
Additionally, operators Majed Khalil Majzoub and Arturo Sarmiento, protected by the Rodríguez brothers, also participated in the corruption scheme through the firms Montmagastre Ventures Limited and Five Oceans Ltd.
The embezzlement from this corruption scheme is now estimated at about $59 billion, an unprecedented figure that reveals the complete impunity with which they operated for years.
So far, it remains unclear exactly where the resources obtained by operators linked to Tarek El Aissami, Diosdado Cabello, and the Rodríguez brothers – three major corruption mafias – ended up, although reports indicate the presumed recovery of over $400 million in cash and properties from individuals implicated in the business, currently detained in Venezuela.
However, if we sum the embezzlements from PDVSA and CVG over the last 20 years, first by Rafael Ramírez’s mafia and now by the aforementioned groups, the total exceeds $100 billion. An obscenity.