Silvain Besson reported yesterday in the Tribune de Genève that Helsinge – the shell company controlled by Francisco Morillo, Leonardo Baquero, and Daniel Lutz – has been charged by Geneva prosecutor Johan Droz with corruption, money laundering, and data theft. The article discusses Helsinge’s operations with Swiss trading houses over a 14-year period (2004-2017) and reiterates previously published figures regarding the potential size of the business: $40 billion.
The fact that Glencore, Trafigura, Vitol, Lukoil, and others bribed for favorable deals from PDVSA is not surprising, as that’s exactly what they do wherever they operate. Neither is the alleged amount ($40 billion), since none of the “successful” descendants of Marc Rich’s business school have grown to their current size through legitimate dealings. Corruption is what Swiss trading houses bet on. Corruption is what they seek in every jurisdiction they operate in. Corruption is their business model. This site actually disagrees with Besson’s comments on what makes a good trader: it’s not about being smarter than the competition, but rather about being able to corrupt the competition.
A race towards the abyss characterizes Rich’s business model of “how to corrupt the competition.” In such a league, a country like Venezuela – with its state-managed resource wealth, “governed” by Chavismo and inhabited by a “business” class like the boliburguesía of Morillo, Baquero, and Lutz – simply could not have turned out better, nor more “profitable.”
Morillo’s role was, in short, to corrupt key people at PDVSA so that insider information about bids could be offered to companies like Trafigura, Glencore, Vitol, and others, who were very happy to entertain Morillo during a long 14-year game of “bribing” others. In total, $40 billion, but that’s just through Helsinge, as Besson correctly states, a company that “… had only a handful of employees,” which is just a shell with only a few staff members.
Ricardo Ramos Helsinge One of the few was Ricardo Ramos, son of opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup. Recently, in late August 2017, Lutz and Ramos were still making deals with PDVSA, despite PDVSA management (established by the master of all corruption Rafael Ramírez) having “established” a trust in New York in July 2017, transferring the claims rights and giving away 66% of the potential profits to David Boies and company. The civil case presented by bully Boies was, as expected, ridiculed out of court.
But Geneva is different. As we have argued in the past, Johan Droz heads a criminal complaint against Helsinge and, by association, Trafigura, Glencore, Vitol, and Lukoil. PDVSA is acting directly, not through an absolutely unnecessary device like the Boies trust. Droz, as Besson reported, is sitting on a mountain of evidence, some of which has already been shared with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), according to sources.
The Department of Justice is investigating Glencore, Trafigura, and Vitol elsewhere, in relation to their involvement in LavaJato and corrupt schemes in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is highly likely that all other combined corrupt schemes do not match what occurred through Helsinge and others in Venezuela.
The Swiss lawyers for Helsinge excuse their clients’ behavior as all Venezuelan criminals do: charging “consultancy fees” is “common” in Venezuela. In fact, Rafael Ramírez would never have allowed PDVSA deals worth $40 billion to happen without receiving his due in some form. The same applies to the managers who remained in charge after his departure and others who followed, like Ysmel Serrano.
The very innocent executives of Helsinge are hiding and refused to appear in the Florida civil proceeding or in the Geneva criminal investigation. That speaks volumes. However, there is a danger that the lawyer representing PDVSA in Geneva (Guerric Canonica) was chosen by Wilmer Ruperti. This means that bully David Boies and his gleeful band of collaborators are still involved, despite their ridiculous case being dismissed in Florida.
There’s more. The legal expert hired by Helsinge to argue the illegality (under Venezuelan law) of David Boies’ trust is Ignacio Hernández, who was designated by interim president Juan Guaidó as the new Legal Advisor. Obviously, there’s an inevitable conflict there, as Hernández has received money to defend the Florida case of those being sued by PDVSA in Geneva. In other words, Hernández’s sponsors are formally accused by a prosecutor in Geneva of corruption, money laundering, and theft of critical PDVSA data.
Sources claim that Guaidó’s appointment of Hernández was imposed by Ramos Allup, who selects some of Guaidó’s new appointees due to the number of seats controlled by his Democratic Action party in the Assembly and is bent on saving his bacon and that of his son.
Helsinge continues with its foolish legal defense, claiming that an investigation on the matter ended with acquittal… in Venezuela, as if the kangaroo courts where anyone can buy a favorable ruling were something to go through. In December last year, a Geneva ruling dismissed Helsinge’s arguments concerning the illegality of the claims made by PDVSA, and moved the case beyond the real merits. Besson reports that Helsinge is now trying to get Droz off the case, presumably due to past connections with Guerric Canonica and, more recently, with Canonica’s uncle. This, again, is a stupid stance, as much as Droz’s connections may be questioned, the merits, namely, that server who was sent by the husband of the Helsinge accountant to Droz, will still be there should a new prosecutor be appointed. Any independent prosecutor, anywhere in the world, investigating PDVSA agreements will only arrive at the same conclusion. As Helsinge claims: when doing business in Venezuela, it is common to pay, um, “consultancy fees.”
Rafael Ramírez and the management structure he established spans almost the entirety of Morillo’s association with Swiss traders (2004-2017). PDVSA recorded oil sales exceeding $1.3 TRILLION during that period. Glencore, Trafigura, and company made a phenomenal amount of business during that time, and every last deal was made through the payment of bribes. That’s another unavoidable truism that will become clear five minutes after any serious investigation into the matter.