The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office has just issued an arrest warrant for money laundering against two international operators involved in the Pdvsa corruption scandal: Italian businessman Alessandro Bazzoni and Mexican Joaquin Leal Jiménez, both accused of working with Álex Saab on dealings with Pdvsa and sanctioned by the United States.
Casto Ocando | @cocando
Recent corruption cases within Pdvsa have unveiled an extensive criminal network operated by the Bolivarian leader and former Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami and his associates, which included over 50 companies both inside and outside of Venezuela. So far, the regime’s prosecutor has ordered the capture of 67 operators—including deputies, businessmen, military officials, public servants, hackers, and even escorts— for their involvement in a fraudulent scheme that siphoned an estimated amount of around $29 billion, a staggering figure that is nearly three times the country’s annual budget.
However, these revelations from the official investigation could merely be the tip of the iceberg, with other networks worldwide having benefited from illicit business dealings with the Venezuelan state oil company.
New elements of the investigation are revealing additional details about other networks that operated until very recently, under the guidance of controversial Italian businessman Alessandro Bazzoni.
The prosecutor’s office, led by Tarek William Saab, recently issued an arrest warrant for Bazzoni due to his involvement in “trafficking” and “illicit trade” of strategic materials, and for “money laundering,” according to documents accessed by Primer Informe.
Although it has not been confirmed whether the prosecutor’s office has already requested Bazzoni’s extradition from the governments of countries where he might be residing, it is known that the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office appointed a prosecutor specifically for the Bazzoni case (the National Prosecutor 73 for Money Laundering and Financial Crimes), who is gathering information about the networks controlled by the Italian businessman on three continents, and his involvement in a scheme of illicit trafficking of strategic materials, a violation of Article 34 of the Organic Law Against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism.
The Prosecutor’s Office may place Alessandro Bazzoni’s name on Interpol’s wanted list in the coming weeks, a source from the prosecutor’s office reported.
Bazzoni presents himself as an international businessman specializing in emerging markets in Latin America and Africa, particularly in energy and philanthropy, and as an avid polo player.
Bazzoni founded the Monterosso UK Project, through which he created and managed his polo team Cinque Terra, honoring the region in Italy where he was born. In an interview with the specialized portal Pololine.com, the businessman stated that he began playing the sport after meeting his current wife, Norwegian Siri Evjemo-Nysveen, an advanced polo player who became a partner of Bazzoni in many operations questioned by the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office.
Evjemo-Nysveen presented herself as a hedge fund and banking manager and was a founding partner in 2017 of the investment fund Clareville Grove Capital LLC, based in London. Until March 2023, she served as vice president of the board of directors of the Swiss bank MBaer Merchant Bank, located in Zurich, an entity that, according to investigations surrounding Bazzoni, may have played a role in the corruption network.
The businessman detailed that he played polo in championships for the English royalty, including the Queen’s Cup—one of the most prestigious polo tournaments in the world—and in competitions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Palm Beach, Florida, which for years was the operational base of banker Víctor Vargas—also a dedicated polo player—and former Venezuelan Treasurer Alejandro Andrade, who is currently imprisoned for corruption.
However, Bazzoni stopped competing in Palm Beach after being sanctioned by the Treasury Department in January 2021 for his dealings with Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela.
Bazzoni was not only accused of helping Pdvsa evade U.S. sanctions to sell Venezuelan oil; he was also identified as taking over Alex Saab’s role—the frontman for Nicolás Maduro—coordinating the sale of Venezuelan crude after the Colombian businessman was arrested in Cabo Verde in June 2020.
SEE ALSO: El Aissami’s dark maneuvers were not unknown to Chávez or Maduro
History in Venezuela
Alessandro Bazzoni’s history in Venezuela dates back to around the mid-2010s when he arrived in Caracas claiming to be a prominent oil businessman and the “godson” of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
“Later we discovered he had nothing to do with Berlusconi, but by then he had already engaged several entrepreneurs,” said a source who met him during those years.
In 2015, following the failed acquisition of the mixed company Petrodelta from Harverst Natural Resources, he met Mexican businessman Joaquín Leal Jiménez, a partner of Alex Saab, who, like him, pretended to be a relative of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Leal Jiménez—who assisted Saab in the fraudulent Clap box scheme and was also sanctioned by the OFAC—was such a close partner that Bazzoni and his wife Siri spent much of the Covid pandemic living in Mexico.
“It was there that the Bazzoni-Evjemo Nysveen couple strengthened their friendship and partnership with Leal Jiménez,” indicated the source who knew the Italian businessman.
It was also during this time that Bazzoni and his wife decided to formalize relations and businesses with a fraudulent scheme they later implemented with Pdvsa between 2021 and 2022, according to the investigations by the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office.
The Bazzoni-Evjemo Nysveen couple expanded their business circle in Venezuela, particularly strengthening ties with operators like Alvaro Pulido, a main partner of Alex Saab, and Wilmar Castro Soteldo, the current Minister of Agricultural Production and Lands.
According to investigations, Castro Soteldo was responsible for attracting entrepreneurs from the agricultural and industrial food production sectors, demanding them to deliver quotas of products like rice, chicken, and processed meats, under the pretext that they would be sent to Cuba and Iran. Castro Soteldo promised food entrepreneurs payment with resources obtained from the sale of crude oil through a supposed alliance with the Vice President of Commerce and Supplies, Colonel José Antonio Pérez Suárez, who is currently detained.
In reality, food entrepreneurs, lacking experience in the energy and oil sector, ended up acting as intermediaries for payments of crude oil that they never received, which was the basis of a multimillion-dollar embezzlement of Pdvsa, additionally triggering a food crisis that led to the collapse of numerous companies in the sector and exacerbating the already critical food shortages affecting Venezuelans.
It is estimated that out of the total embezzled from Pdvsa by all operators, the Bazzoni-Evjemo Nysveen couple accumulated over $800 million.
The Bazzoni-Evjemo Nysveen couple utilized the infrastructure of MBaer Merchant Bank, based in Zurich and controlled by Swiss banker Michael Baer, great-grandson of Julius Baer, founder of the eponymous bank that had a significant involvement in various scandals in Venezuela, including the corruption case involving Cilia Flores’ children.
According to sources, Bazzoni used the firm Baer Capital Partners, a subsidiary of MBaer Merchant Bank in Dubai, to move capital from Asia to Switzerland, resulting from the illicit sale of Venezuelan crude oil. Reports indicate that Bazzoni and his wife Siri utilized the firm Norge Oil Limited, established in the British tax haven of the Isle of Man, to direct their investments, including those made in the Swiss bank.
In 2020, Evjemo Nysveen was appointed to MBaer Merchant Bank’s board of directors, just after the bank formalized a capital increase of 6.83 million Swiss francs (about $7.6 million).
Interestingly, Evjemo Nysveen was removed from the bank board in March 2023, just weeks after the Pdvsa corruption scandal involving Tarek El Aissami erupted and evidence regarding Bazzoni’s involvement in the fraudulent scheme against the Venezuelan state company began circulating.
The Italian-Norwegian couple maintains a high-profile lifestyle. According to a witness who shared information with the prosecutor’s office in Venezuela, the Bazzoni-Evjemo Nysveen couple owns properties in London and along the Italian Mediterranean coast, equestrian estates, a private jet, and a helicopter used for traveling between their properties.
Bazzoni’s brother, Lorenzo, is listed as an executive of the second division football club Spal, founded over a century ago in Ferrara, Italy, by Salesian priests.
According to Wikipedia, Spal Club was recently purchased in 2021 by a group of investors represented by American Joe Tacopina, personal attorney of former President Donald Trump in the two sexual abuse cases against him: that of former porn actress Stormy Daniels—still ongoing—and that of former journalist E. Jean Carroll, for whose claim Trump was recently sentenced to pay $5 million in damages.
In the negotiation to acquire Spal Club, Tacopina controlled 49% of the shares through Tacopina Italian Football Investment SRL. Shortly after acquiring SPAL, Tacopina told Forbes that he planned to inject between $13 and $14 million into the club. In another article recently published on SPAL Club’s portal, he stated that he has already invested a total of 25 million euros.
Although Tacopina did not publicly announce Alessandro Bazzoni’s shareholdings, in an interview with the Italian portal estense.com, Tacopina himself admitted that a “top-secret” Italian family participated in the acquisition of Spal Club. The mysterious family was represented by Lorenzo Bazzoni, described as an “accountant based in Milan.”
Historically, the acquisition of football teams has been a common mechanism for money laundering operations, through the administration, player purchases, and cash management at ticket offices and stores during matches. This was notably the case for Chelsea Club, acquired by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who was sanctioned last year in the UK for his ties to Vladimir Putin.
Authorities are trying to establish whether the Bazzoni-Evjemo Nysveen couple is involved, albeit on a small scale, in a money laundering operation with the football team SPAL.
As reported by Primer Informe last April, at least three federal agencies in the United States are closely monitoring the corruption scandal linked to Tarek El Aissami and his operators in Pdvsa.
Investigations are focused on individuals already under investigation or have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department. At least two prosecutor’s offices, the Southern District of Florida based in Miami and the Southern District of Texas based in Houston, are expanding their inquiries.
Federal agents are particularly interested in the roles of operators Alessandro Bazzoni, an Italian national, and Joaquín Leal Jiménez, a Mexican citizen, whom the Treasury Department considers the “heirs” of Colombian operator Álex Saab, currently detained in the United States and labeled by Washington as the frontman for dictator Nicolás Maduro.
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