At the end of 2012, when I wrote my first post about Derwick Associates and became interested in their activities, I remember conducting a WHOIS search on their domain name derwickassociates.com. The site appeared to be registered by Derwick Associates of Venezuela, using 17121 Collins Avenue, Apt. 3305, Sunny Isles Beach, 33160 in Miami, which is the address of Jade Ocean, a luxury high-end building. In the following days, I recall seeing frequent visits to the blog of the ISP Fortune International 17121 Collins, presumably the company providing Internet services to residents of Jade Ocean, and I even tweeted a welcome note to the readers of Derwick. Some time later, I visited this site to verify who owned Apt. 3305 at Jade Ocean, and things got even more interesting.
As shown by the Miami-Dade property records, Logistic Asset Management, a corporation registered in Nevis, purchased the apartment in June 2010 for $1.3 million. Jade Ocean has about 257 residential units. It was really fascinating to see, for example, that Leonardo González Dellán paid $2.15 million to an Argentine businessman for an apartment in that building. Observers from Venezuela might remember González Dellán from his days as director of the state-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela (BIV). It would be enlightening to hear González Dellán explain how, after just two years (2002-2004) at the bank (apparently his last known job), he can afford such a lavish lifestyle and properties like those. But I’m getting off track.
It would take some time before I took the next step, which was, of course, consulting with Nevis authorities about the persons/owners behind Logistic Asset Management, and lo and behold! Derwick’s number two, Pedro Trebbau López, turned out to be the Mr. Logistic Asset Management.
In a conversation with the legendary Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda, he mentioned that he had heard the Derwick bolichicos had purchased an entire luxury building in Miami, although Logistic Asset Management only acquired one unit in Jade Ocean. Did Derwick own more?
ImportGenius to the rescue. A search for Alejandro Betancourt revealed one result—an import of a luxury glass table from Italy. Delivery address: 17121 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach. Was Betancourt gifting an elegant table to his partner, or was it for his own apartment in Jade Ocean? The clue came from the Miami-Dade property record. Trebbau’s Logistic Asset Management had acquired unit 3305 on June 14, 2010. That same day, Agency Partners Corp, another company registered in Nevis, bought unit 3405 for another $1.3 million.
Would it be crazy to bet $100 that Agency Partners Corp is yet another front in Alejandro Betancourt’s property portfolio, which includes the former penthouse of Aristotle Onassis in New York https://elfarodelmorro.net/lavado-de-dinero-al-estilo-derwick/, a hunting estate of 1,400 hectares on the outskirts of Madrid https://elfarodelmorro.net/lavado-de-dinero-al-estilo-derwick/, and another quite luxurious apartment in the heart of the Spanish capital https://elfarodelmorro.net/lavado-de-dinero-al-estilo-derwick/?
The Derwick guys are not in the wealth-building league of entrepreneurs like Onassis: they are merely laundering the profits from poorly awarded contracts that their schoolmates secured for them through rampant corruption and nepotism of chavismo.
The city of Miami recently declared Raúl Gorrín—Boligarch owner of the Globovisión television channel—persona non grata after reports emerged about his property purchases in Cocoplum. U.S. authorities would do well to check the backgrounds of the owners of Jade Ocean…