In the latest exhibition of “news” related to Venezuela, Bloomberg took a page from the Reuters playbook and published a report on Libre Abordo, Grupo Schlager, Grupo JOMADI, and PDVSA.
#plagiarism, @reuters style: https://t.co/iuXybw3GdP pic.twitter.com/cWyH5V8SvN
– Alek Boyd (@infodi0) May 15, 2020
They couldn’t even acknowledge @reuters, who plagiarized the same publication before you did: https://t.co/QYy48Rqcpi https://t.co/iuXybw3GdP
– Alek Boyd (@infodi0) May 29, 2020
Plagiarism is the theft of intellectual work. When it comes to reporting on Venezuela’s rampant corruption, no news organization anywhere can begin to compare with the volume of work published by us since late 2002. We have been steadfast and focused on this issue ever since. News cycles, clickbait, editorial restrictions, and legal threats have never interfered with our work.
Some people say we should feel proud, even honored, that such prestigious news organizations basically copy our work and present it as their own. Obviously, those who claim that have no idea of the effort and time that goes into producing original, unique, and innovative investigative journalism, and are less aware of the personal risks and financial hardships it entails. Doing what we do here for nearly two decades is akin to charity. How can someone be so twisted as to try to take credit for the charitable work of another?
Venezuela is a banana republic, a failed state by all accounts. It is also the most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere. However, tearing down the veil of misinformation and propaganda in such a place requires blood, sweat, and tears. We have directly faced legal threats, terrorism, defamation campaigns, assaults, seizures, theft of laptops, forced exile, and have received countless other forms of intimidation from the bullies we expose here in their desperate and futile attempts to undermine our reputation. Our audience is not large, and it was never meant to be. Our goal has always been law enforcement. In that field, we are also unique, as many of our investigations have triggered criminal probes in different jurisdictions. This is the main reason why this site has become a favorite among plagiarists.
The latest example, again, is Alex Saab and his dealings with the Nicolás Maduro regime through Libre Abordo. As soon as we published our story, federal agencies began investigating Libre Abordo, Schlager Group, and Elemento. Reuters then elevated our story, followed a few days later by Bloomberg. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve seen our work used regarding the specific topic of Alex Saab.
In early January 2016, we published about Trenaco, a small Colombian shell connected to Saab. It was a mega energy deal (~ $20 billion) in the works. We revealed connections to Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, Swiss registration details linked to a Venezuelan lawyer, capital increases, etc. Six months later, Reuters produced an “exclusive,” regurgitating most of what we had uncovered.
In April 2019, in another successful piece on Saab, this time by Bloomberg, information we published was again used without attribution. When confronted by someone from Bloomberg, they told this site that they could not credit our work.
Our groundbreaking report on Alex Saab ended up forming the basis of a Department of Justice indictment against him. Saab is now a criminal, a wanted man. Other Venezuelan thugs share the same fate, thanks to our work.
Our investigative reporting has filled books and countless “news reports” over the past 18 years, most of the time not without attribution. It remains a mystery to us how any “professional journalist” can seriously attempt to misuse/appropriate our work and claim it as exclusive when a simple Google search can prove otherwise. All college/university students in the developed world are familiar with plagiarism, yet the premise continues to elude journalists covering Venezuela.
As soon as I saw the Bloomberg article, I confronted Ben Bartenstein via WhatsApp. I asked him why he was plagiarizing my work. He responded in the most disingenuous way, first asking who I was (Bartenstein’s first email about this site’s work dates back to April 2016). He then claimed he didn’t follow it, only to say he was busy with some things in Argentina, less than 20 minutes after his first response, and added “feel free to call.”
I also emailed Bartenstein around the same time, requesting contact details for the person responsible at Bloomberg to address formal plagiarism complaints. This was followed up by Lynn Doan, managing editor of Energy and Commodities Americas, providing details for Laura Zelenko, “senior executive editor of news standards.” Despite claiming not to know who I was or what I was talking about, a visitor from Bloomberg’s IP addresses reviewed this site’s Libre Abordo article twice.
We await Zelenko’s response to our plagiarism complaint, while emphasizing to all plagiarism hackers that the timeline is unbeatable.