Venezuelans rank among the top investors in Florida’s real estate market. Eleven former officials from Pdvsa, high-profile contractors linked to Chavismo, individuals charged by U.S. authorities, and even a family member of President Maduro, who appears on the Clinton list, have made purchases exceeding $60 million in properties.
Opening the door to apartment 45C in the One57 building on 57th Street is like stepping into one of the most luxurious and expensive apartments in Manhattan. Surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, the 45C offers spectacular views of the Big Apple from every room: Central Park, the Hudson River, and far beyond, the city skyline. In each of the spaces within this corner unit, there is something that elevates it to another level: Italian marble, granite, stunning doorways, private bathrooms for all four bedrooms, and a kitchen outfitted with state-of-the-art appliances. The owner is María Lila Rincón, wife of Roberto Enrique Rincón Fernández—a Venezuelan businessman who pleaded guilty in 2015 to money laundering and siphoning more than $1 billion from the state-owned corporation Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) in one of the largest corruption cases in the country’s history.
Valued at $17 million, this apartment is located in one of the most expensive areas of the island. This neighborhood is famously known as Billionaire Row, renowned for its concentration of wealth displayed across a cluster of eight residential skyscrapers. One57, where Rincón’s wife’s property is situated, opened its doors in 2014. The structure was designed by acclaimed French architect Christian de Portzamparc, with interiors created by his Danish peer Thomas Jull-Hansen, also a well-known professional. Many of the apartments in the area were purchased as real estate investments by individuals with significant capital and are now up for sale, just like María Lila Rincón’s unit.
This is how a real estate company promotes the building where María Lila Rincón owns a unit.
However, this property is not María Lila Rincón’s only holding in the United States: the family owns at least two more apartments in Brickell, the financial heart of Miami. The properties together are valued at around $19 million and are part of the findings from an investigative journalistic effort that tracked the properties owned by 11 Venezuelans in the U.S.—a sample that reflects the scale of operations involving persons of interest in the country.
The list includes relatives of high-ranking government officials—such as the wife of Carlos Erick Malpica, who served as treasurer of the nation and chief financial officer for the state oil company, and who is also the nephew of Cilia Flores, Nicolás Maduro’s partner; former Pdvsa officials like Alfonzo Gravina and Karina Núñez, who are linked to Rincón’s case; as well as high-profile Chavismo contractors and members of their family or business circles—including Naman Wakil, Ricardo Morón, Morela Hernández de Morón, María Lila and José Roberto Rincón, Atahualpa Fernández Arbulu, Franz Muller, and others. Of the 11 individuals tracked, four have been charged by U.S. authorities, and one is on the Clinton list released by the Department of the Treasury, which includes over 200 individuals close to Chavismo.
Chavismo INC. identified 33 properties associated with these individuals, ranging from $220,000 to luxury estates exceeding $17 million, totaling over $60 million. The properties were purchased between 2006 and 2019 in the United States, which has become a prime destination for those looking to invest in real estate while remaining under the radar. All tracked properties for this investigation are located in Florida—mainly in the Brickell neighborhood—except for two in Texas and New York. Most are registered under companies that show no commercial activity, apart from owning the property. Others are in the names of spouses, partners, and family members, sometimes bought only to be sold at a loss a few months later.
According to the National Association of Realtors, Venezuelans have been among the top Latin American buyers of properties in the U.S. since 2003, making it one of their favorite destinations for migration. Most conducted legal transactions in the real estate market, but others have drawn the attention of local authorities leading the fight against corruption originating from Venezuela. In southern Florida alone, which has attracted most of the migration, properties worth over $450 million have been seized, some of which are real estate. To date, 38 investigations and judicial cases involving more than 100 individuals have begun in the U.S., revealing embezzlement from the Venezuelan state totaling over $16.049 billion, according to Chavismo INC.
None of this deterred Venezuelans linked to the Chavista regime, who continued to invest in properties. Doing so is legitimate: anyone can buy a home wherever they want, but at some point, they will need to trace the source of funds enabling that purchase. Chavismo INC. simply shares the acquisitions, relationships, and other interactions that can bring to light the scope of assets linked to this list of persons of interest in the world.
The information was obtained by tracking judicial cases, company records, and asset registries of individuals linked to Chavismo across 69 countries, which led to the creation of a comprehensive database. This transnational investigative initiative was undertaken by Transparencia Venezuela in partnership with the Latin American journalism platform CONNECTAS and Alianza Rebelde Investiga (ARI), involving journalists and investigators from Venezuela, Argentina, Panama, Spain, the United States, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia.
Apartment 45C in the One57 building on 57th Street, one of the most luxurious and costly in Manhattan, is registered under the company Unit 45c Holding LLC, which is based in Texas. This property is now for sale—”One57 is where a luxurious life awaits you,” says the listing—for $16 million. It was purchased in March 2015 for $17.3 million in cash, according to property records accessed by Chavismo INC. The company shares an address with several others owned by Roberto Rincón in Texas and is managed by María Lila Rincón.
A group of 25 properties identified in this investigation were acquired through companies connected to persons of interest. This group includes María Lila Rincón herself and her luxury apartment in Manhattan; the stunning house reserved for the former Pdvsa purchasing analyst Karina Núñez; and those owned by contractors Ricardo Morón, Morela Hernández de Morón, Atahualpa Fernández Arbulu, Amir Nassar Tayupe, Naman Wakil, and Diego Villarroel Atela.
U.S. legislation allows buyers to use companies that aren’t required to have economic activity, making it easier to conceal assets: in many cases, it’s almost impossible to ascertain the source of money behind such companies, as buyers can register shell companies under the names of accountants, lawyers, or relatives. Chavismo INC. shows that this is a common practice, especially in other jurisdictions like Panama. Sometimes, purchases are made by groups of investors, further obscuring the origins of funds. Additionally, the board of any company can change without being reported in property records. Hence, for reasons of risk and privacy, many choose this route.
In María Lila Rincón’s case, the use of companies for property purchases is not limited to the New York apartment: she owns at least two properties located in the same building in Brickell, Miami’s financial hub. Both are registered under companies controlled by Rincón, and all three properties share a common registered agent.
These property purchases occurred despite being under the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice, which suspects that María Lila Rincón Bravo and her son, José Roberto Rincón Bravo, were part of a group of individuals who collaborated with businessman Roberto Rincón, the husband and father of both, in the corruption scheme to which he pleaded guilty. While they have not been charged with any offenses, the Department of Justice’s suspicions are documented in judicial records.
But not only U.S. authorities were tracking the Rincón-Bravo family. In June 2018, Spanish authorities arrested José Roberto Rincón Bravo and his mother, María Lila Rincón, at an estate on the outskirts of Madrid. This arrest highlighted the luxurious lifestyle of the businessman’s family. The Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the Spanish National Police and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office seized luxury vehicles, art pieces, wines, and jewelry. The UDEF took 17 pages to document all the jewelry seized, valued at 12 million euros by authorities, although the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial estimates that its commercial value could triple. María Lila Rincón and her son remain free while awaiting trial. Their legal team was sent a questionnaire regarding the matters raised in this investigation but did not respond.
The purchase of properties through companies and paid in cash has rendered the real estate market, especially the high-end sector, increasingly opaque and attractive to those looking to hide assets within the United States. Data analyzed by the New York Times shows that in recent years, nearly half of the residential purchases over $5 million were made by shell companies.
Another notable case of property purchases through companies is Luxe Investments Corp., registered in Florida under Diego Alejandro Villarroel Atella’s name. This company owns a house valued at nearly $3 million in the Pinecrest neighborhood of Miami. Who is the real owner? Diego Alejandro Villarroel Atella, a young Venezuelan and partner of Luis David Chacín Imbrondone, the son of businessman and contractor Luis Chacín Haddad, who was sentenced to four years in prison in the U.S. for corruption related to the National Electric Corporation (Corpoelec). On his Facebook profile, Villarroel shows a meteoric career: he went from selling cell phones and televisions in 2014 to buying and selling dollars, cement, and steel in 2017, before becoming a contractor for Corpoelec in 2019.
Villarroel and Chacín Imbrondone are partners in Guangzhou Ballac Trading Limited C.A., a company registered in Venezuela’s National Contractor Registry (RNC). According to its website, it offers demolition, recovery, storage, transportation, recycling, and container services. Villarroel also owns a similarly named company, Guangzhou Ballac Trading Limited, LLC, registered in Florida, which, according to import data from the Import Genius database, supplied Corpoelec with two LMF-type compressors in July 2019. Import records indicate that Guangzhou Ballac Trading Limited LLC acted as an intermediary between the manufacturing company, LMF, and Corpoelec. Villarroel was contacted by Chavismo INC. but did not respond to the questionnaire.
In addition to operations like Villarroel’s, purchasing properties through companies, Chavismo INC. also shows acquisitions made through family members and partners. This list includes Naman Wakil, a former street vendor linked to the food sector in Venezuela, who owns properties in the names of companies, himself, and his wife. Wakil fits into all the patterns identified for property purchases in the United States. In Venezuela, he is known for his connections with the brothers-in-law of former food minister Carlos Osorio, a Venezuelan army general who controlled food imports for several years, and for the ability to secure contracts with the Venezuelan state due to this relationship. It was precisely in this sector that Wakil amassed his fortune: he bought cheap beef and poultry in Brazil, some close to their expiration dates, and then sold them to state-run food programs.
A 2019 Bloomberg report revealed that Wakil instructed his Swiss bankers to transfer $5.9 million to relatives of Carlos Osorio as payment for awarding him contracts for meat sales. Both Wakil and his beneficiaries used accounts at Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique S.A. (CBH), based in Geneva.
The American media’s investigation mentions that in June 2012, Wakil secured a contract to supply Venezuela with some 70,000 metric tons of beef, pasta, and cooking oil. By 2015, his personal fortune had reached $400 million, as evidenced in the global Panama Papers investigation.
About $19 million of that fortune is distributed across 13 properties in Florida. Eight of these are registered under companies, while five are owned by Wakil himself and his wife, Ingrid Maria Sayegh Sakka; two are located in the same building: 951 Brickell Ave. in Miami. There is an interesting twist in the transaction of these apartments: they were purchased from Atahualpa Fernández Arbulu, a businessman closely linked to the Venezuelan military, textiles, and bottled water industries. Wakil and Fernández were also owners of apartments in the controversial Porsche Design Tower in Miami, a luxurious 60-story skyscraper with car elevators, where other Venezuelans connected to cases reviewed by U.S. authorities also owned properties. Chavismo INC. reached out to Wakil for comments regarding these activities but did not receive a reply.