Last week, I posted about the latest developments in the RICO lawsuit filed by Otto Reich against Derwick Associates. It presents a rather unexpected and interesting twist to the corruption saga: he supposedly offered information about the other two defendants (Alejandro Betancourt and Pedro Trebbau) to Reich in “exchange for his dismissal” from the lawsuit. There’s no honor among thieves, huh?
Readers of the Spanish version of this site may remember that our own Tomás Lander highlighted the “former Venezuelan government official” as the ex-ambassador of Venezuela to the U.S., Ignacio Arcaya Smith. I wanted to ask Arcaya about the accusations from Reich’s attorney, and after tracking down his Twitter account (@gallopasion), I inquired if it truly belonged to him. Arcaya responded, claiming it did, and dismissed my questions by saying he didn’t know who I was or what I was talking about (image).
My inquiries to Arcaya must have piqued the interest of some of my Twitter followers, as the next thing I received was an email from a source claiming that Arcaya, an employee of Vargas, was receiving regular payments from Banco Occidental de Descuento (the bank of Víctor Vargas). Furthermore, the source alleged that $40,000 had been funneled to Arcaya through BOI Bank, a “bank” owned by Víctor Vargas in Antigua.
Money for his silence?
I did a bit of Googling and found that BOI Bank Corporation was established on March 14, 1994, and changed its name from Banco Occidental International Ltd to BOI Bank Corporation on September 7, 1999. Its General Manager is Santos Alonso. Alonso is also linked to Allbank, another “bank” owned by Vargas in Panama. The name Santos appears associated with Banco del Orinoco NV (company no. 64808), another front for Vargas registered in Curaçao, where he shares board responsibilities with Joel Santos Tobio, Loes Pieternel De Bot, Carlos Silva Alcala, Jaime Hernan De Sola, Vargas, and Luis Alfonso De Borbon Martinez Bordiu, the other son-in-law of Vargas and grandson of the late Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco.
My questions to Arcaya regarding the allegations from Reich’s lawyer fell short of a response expected from a diplomat: he blocked access to his Twitter account.
This bodes poorly for Betancourt and Trebbau. Regardless of whether Arcaya wants to publicly admit his involvement, having Vargas actively working to pull his son-in-law and employee out of the lawsuit by offering information that would incriminate Betancourt and Trebbau must be driving them crazy. A true internal war within the boliburguesía. Vargas has just scored a significant “goal”: after facing the acquisition of the Cadena Capriles by Maduro’s regime, he received the green light for the merger of his BOD with CorpBanca. If Reich’s claims are true, this incident also reveals the sheer provincialism of the bolivarian bankers and former Venezuelan diplomats. Didn’t they think such offers and visits would come back to haunt them? Don’t they know that the other side, Betancourt and Trebbau, likely have just as much dirt on their hands? Grab the popcorn!!