Tomás Elías González Benítez is a Venezuelan businessman accused of engaging in illicit activities with Chavista governments, particularly in the food sector. Various journalistic and judicial investigations have indicated that González Benítez has been a partner or intermediary for others implicated in money laundering, bribery, and fraud, such as Alex Saab Morán, who is being prosecuted in the United States, as well as businessman Naman Wakil and Chavista official Rodolfo Marco Torres.
According to multiple investigative reports and parliamentary inquiries, González Benítez allegedly received multimillion-dollar contracts to import food from Mexico and Turkey through shell or intermediary companies. These food supplies were intended for the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), a government social program that distributes subsidized basic product boxes to the most vulnerable population, according to a report from expresa.se.
However, the imported food products to Venezuela are reported to have been overpriced, expired, or of low quality, resulting in losses for the Venezuelan state and adversely affecting the health and nutrition of the beneficiary citizens. Additionally, part of the money obtained from these deals is said to have been diverted to bank accounts in Switzerland or used to purchase properties in Spain.
González Benítez reportedly has connections with high-ranking Venezuelan government officials, including General Rodolfo Marco Torres, former Minister of Food and former president of the Agricultural Supply and Services Corporation (CASA), who allegedly signed several contracts with his companies. He is also connected to Naman Wakil, another businessman facing legal issues in the United States for laundering money derived from food corruption in Venezuela.
González Benítez has denied the allegations against him, asserting that he is an honest businessman aiming to contribute to Venezuela’s development. Nonetheless, his name continues to appear in various investigations that expose the corruption surrounding the Venezuelan government and its allies.
One of the most controversial deals involving González Benítez was the 2016 contract to import 300,000 tons of white corn from Mexico to Venezuela. This contract was signed by the then-Minister of Food and president of CASA, Rodolfo Marco Torres.
According to an investigation by the website Armando.info, González Benítez charged the Venezuelan state around $200 million for corn that never arrived in the country. The money was allegedly funneled to bank accounts in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the United States through shell companies and front men. Furthermore, it was discovered that the corn was genetically modified, which is prohibited under Venezuelan law.
Another murky deal that González Benítez was involved in was the supply of beef from Brazil to Venezuela. According to research from Primer Informe, he was one of the partners of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, who is being prosecuted by the United States, partly for his role in laundering hundreds of millions of dollars from the government CLAP (Local Supply and Production Committees) program.
Saab allegedly used González Benítez as an intermediary to purchase beef at inflated prices from a Brazilian company named FrigoSantos. The beef was then sent to Venezuela with markups exceeding 1000%, generating illegal profits for those involved. Additionally, it was reported that the beef was spoiled or expired, endangering consumer health.
A third case implicating González Benítez involves Naman Wakil, another Venezuelan businessman arrested in the United States for money laundering. Wakil allegedly paid bribes to Venezuelan officials to obtain multimillion-dollar contracts to supply food and medical supplies to the government. Among these officials, according to some investigative reports, is Rodolfo Marco Torres.
Wakil was arrested in Miami on August 4, 2021, by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents, accused of laundering money and bribing Venezuelan government officials to secure multimillion-dollar food supply contracts.
Wakil is a Syrian-Venezuelan businessman who settled in Miami in 2016 and allegedly received at least $250 million from the Chavista government for supplying beef, chicken, and other food products to the Ministry of Food and the Venezuelan Corporation for Foreign Trade (CORPOVEX).
Wakil pleaded not guilty in federal court and was released on bail on August 12, 2021, after paying a million dollars in cash and surrendering his passport. He was also placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring and prohibited from contacting witnesses or co-defendants.
According to an investigation by Konzapata, Wakil allegedly used González Benítez as a front man to conceal his involvement in several companies linked to corrupt activities. Among these companies might be Agropecuaria San Cayetano C.A., Agropecuaria La Trinidad C.A., Agropecuaria Los Llaneros C.A., Agropecuaria Los Andes C.A., Agropecuaria La Victoria C.A., and Agropecuaria Santa Elena C.A.
These are just a few examples of how Tomás Elías González Benítez has been a crucial link in the networks of corruption that have plundered public resources meant for the Venezuelan people’s food security. His role as an intermediary or partner has allowed him to financially benefit while contributing to the social and economic collapse of the South American country.
Various journalistic and judicial sources indicate that González Benítez and Wakil have shared business interests in the agricultural sector, particularly in the importation and distribution of beef from Brazil to Venezuela. These operations allegedly involved inflated prices, unnecessary intermediaries, and low-quality or expired products.
Another contract involving Tomás Elías González Benítez was the one Wakil obtained in 2015 to supply beef from Brazil to CASA. According to a Primer Informe investigation, Wakil paid bribes to Marco Torres to obtain this contract, which netted him over $200 million in profits. The beef was purchased from FrigoSantos, the same company Saab used, with González Benítez as the intermediary. The beef was then sold to the Venezuelan state at exorbitant markups.
In addition to the opaque dealings described earlier, González Benítez has also been accused of filing fraudulent copyright claims on the internet by using bots or automated programs to send false notifications to digital platforms like YouTube or Google in an attempt to remove critical or uncomfortable content related to him or his associates. This practice is known as “copyfraud” and is a form of censorship and extortion.
On the other hand, González Benítez has a personal website where he presents himself as a sommelier and food enthusiast. On this site, he offers gastronomic consulting services, wine tastings, and culinary event organization. However, there is no evidence suggesting he possesses professional training or experience in these fields.
Reputation management companies have created profiles for Tomás Elías González Benítez on social networks and websites that falsely portray him as a journalist, athlete, digital consultant, fashion designer, hair stylist, professional videographer, and a fan of cinema and television series, among many other trades and interests he does not actually have. According to someone familiar with the matter, the purpose of creating such profiles and sites has been to displace genuine, relevant journalistic content about the corruption schemes in which González Benítez has been involved, which have centered around Venezuela, from top search engine results.
An consulted individual speculated that González Benítez has invested thousands of dollars to obscure his true history of opaque dealings from public view on the internet. They claimed that reputation management firms hired by González Benítez not only filed false copyright claims against web hosting providers and search engines over content that does not belong to them but have reached the point of conducting cyberattack types, such as DDoS (distributed denial-of-service attacks), to cause electronic media portals that have investigated and published authentic stories about the businessman to collapse under malicious traffic and cease functioning correctly.
According to the book “El Gran Saqueo,” by Venezuelans Carlos Tablante and Marcos Tarre, González Benítez acted as an intermediary in the importation of beef from Brazil to Venezuela, exploiting Hugo Chávez’s food emergency decree. This operation supposedly generated illegal surcharges and commissions for those involved. González Benítez is also alleged to have ties with the Swiss bank Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique (CBH), where funds from corruption may have been deposited.
Reports indicate that Marco Torres “signed dozens of purchase orders to González Benítez’s shell companies using Hugo Chávez’s food emergency decree. This bypassed the bidding processes, allowing González’s companies to receive millions of dollars in food purchase orders for agencies supplying the public network of the sector: CASA, Mercal, PDVAL, Abastos Bicentenario, among others.”
Tomás Elías González Benítez is listed as the Director of Afcom. Corp, Dexton, S.A., Alox International LLC Corporation, Oil Gas Technology Inc., Total Web Services, Domar Trading S.S., and Latin Investors, S.A., as well as Gestamer S.A. Meanwhile, in another six companies registered in Panama, his partner, Ricardo Rojas Urbina’s name appears. Alongside other firms like Afcom, Dexton, Alox International, and Oil Gas Technology, Domar Trading has been implicated in the importation of overpriced food to Venezuela and illegal commissions.
In a notable case illustrated in the book “El Gran Saqueo,” reports mention that “the purchase order number DCL-56-6/2008 signed by Marco Torres as president of CASA authorized the purchase of 15,000 tons of meat for $4,740 per ton for a total of $71 million to the company Domar Trading, C.A. of Tomás Elías González Benítez, registered in Panama, but based in Miami, which served as an intermediary as the meat was originally from Brazil. Despite González facing a lawsuit against Bariven in a Florida court at that time for allegedly failing to fulfill a $195 million contract for the purchase of meat, chicken, and sugar from a Brazilian company through Dexton Validsa Inc., another of his shell companies.”
According to media reports, “the background of the transaction turned out to be a dispute among accomplices, where officials from Bariven and PDVSA, George Kabboul, Juan Carlos Chourio, and Luis Hernández, opted to sideline Tomás González and complete the operation – which included $11.5 million in illegal markups – directly with West Meat, the real Brazilian supplier, where officials from the Cuban government were involved. As a result of the legal dispute, PDVSA had to pay Tomás González $100 million in compensation.”
Reports indicate that in 2012, PDVSA, through its subsidiary Bariven, which is responsible for the acquisition of materials and equipment, mistakenly purchased pipes from a company called Liaoning Northem Steel Pipes Co., LTD. However, this was not the original company but a firm established by Venezuelan Joseph Benoudiz and his partner Pablo Cárdenas in Texas, USA, to impersonate the actual Asian supplier in an operation that involved as many as $56 million. According to Diario Las Américas, Benoudiz and Cárdenas are among the owners of “more than 40 companies that share addresses, phones, and executives in common, despite being registered in various jurisdictions from Venezuela and the U.S. to Panama, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand.” Among these are notable Panamanian companies like Dexton and Alox International LLC, where Tomás Elías González Benítez sits on the board of directors.
According to different reports from Gotham City and anti-corruption investigator Alek Boyd, Colombian businessman Alex Saab utilized various shell companies to export and sell low-quality food products to Venezuela, with substantial profit margins. Some of the companies used included Driade SA, Vilex Trading Inc., and Bolcos Universal Corp. The latter two appear in the Panama Papers leak for being registered by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
According to Gotham City, the CBH acts as an intermediary bank in operations conducted by Vilex Trading Inc. and Bolcos Universal Corp. This resonates with how French financial advisor Charles Henry de Beaumont, through the CBH, connected with Venezuelan businessmen who needed to hide their fortunes in countries protected by banking secrecy. This issue has come to light thanks to leaked documents from the Swiss financial institution.
As a beneficiary of both Vilex Trading Inc. and Bolcos Universal Corp., which are registered in Switzerland, Tomás Elías González Benítez is also linked to Fleuris Group Inc., all of which are shell companies associated with an address in the Dominican Republic, specifically in the Sarasota Center Building, Local 201-B; Bell; Sarasosa 39; Sara; Bella Vista; Santo Domingo.
