Angel Villarino, from El Confidencial, has just published a revealing piece about the mega-corrupt Venezuelan Alejandro Betancourt. Spanish media took a long time to uncover what we Venezuelans have been shouting for years: Derwick Associates is a hub of corruption, and everything stemming from there is just variations on well-known themes like embezzlement and money laundering.
Villarino’s extensive article includes a couple of details I wasn’t aware of:
1) Otto Reich, after much struggle, ended up working for the lobbying firm (Ballard Partners) hired by a company controlled by Betancourt (Hawkers);
2) a frontman for Betancourt (José Ramón Blanco Balín) has just been accepted by the regime of Nicolás Maduro as a partner of PDVSA in a so-called strategic partnership called PETROSUR. Quoting Villarino:
The Venezuelan seems to open many doors for those close to him. There’s José Ramón Blanco Balín, former vice president of Repsol, indicted in several pieces of the Gürtel case as a “money launderer” for Correa and someone very close to Betancourt in Madrid. On July 10, he received authorization from Venezuela’s Supreme Court to exploit part of the reserves known as the Orinoco Oil Belt together with a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), with Petrosur SA.
One must ask, given Mr. Blanco’s criminal past, what credentials could he have presented to the Supreme Court to land such a deal and be favored by PDVSA? Aside from the irregularity of the highest court in the country approving commercial agreements exclusively reserved for the National Assembly of Venezuela, let’s ask this differently: without Betancourt’s “good will,” why would Nicolás Maduro entertain proposals from dubious companies managed by Blanco?