The Greek shipowner Mario Iliopoulos is the latest piece identified in the complex web controlled by Colonel José Antonio Pérez Suárez, Vice President of Trade and Supply at Pdvsa, who is currently detained in Caracas.
Casto Ocando | @cocando
New details from the investigation into the corruption networks within Pdvsa reveal an expanded range of international connections that include new players in the exclusive group of Greek shipowners benefiting from illegal transactions involving Venezuelan crude oil.
A key figure recently identified in the investigations is the Greek shipowner Mario Iliopoulos, one of the brokers for tankers who formed a close alliance with Colonel José Antonio Pérez Suárez, now at the center of the extensive corruption network linked to the former Minister of Petroleum and high-ranking chavismo figure, Tareck El Aissami.
Colonel Pérez Suárez, currently in indefinite detention, developed a fraudulent scheme with Iliopoulos and other shipowners and operators based in Greece and Italy to secure multimillion-dollar profits.
According to sources familiar with the investigation, the military officer demanded cash payments of millions for each ship loaded with crude and petroleum products that left Pdvsa’s terminals. However, these amounts never made it into the coffers of the Venezuelan corporation.
Another crucial piece of the investigations is the shipowner Mario Iliopoulos, who cultivated a close relationship with Colonel José Antonio Pérez Suárez.
Alliance for Embezzlement
Iliopoulos, known among Pdvsa operators simply as Mario, has been active for years in the business of transporting Venezuelan crude to international markets.
“He had been doing all the freight for Boris Ivanov, an operator with the Russian entity Gazprombank who partnered with Alejandro Betancourt in the mixed company Petrozamora,” said a source who worked with Pdvsa.
Iliopoulos was a direct competitor of Alessandro Bazzoni, another broker who also had irregular dealings with Colonel Pérez Suárez and other high-ranking officials at the Venezuelan state oil company.
However, in 2021 and 2022, Iliopoulos temporarily allied with Bazzoni to establish a cartel managed by the Italian broker Erik Roveta, through which freight prices were inflated, and extraordinary delays were created to increase profits.
A delay of a VLLC ship (with a capacity exceeding 250,000 tons of crude) could cost up to $150,000 per day, and these delays could last up to 40 days. After that time, the debt incurred by the delay, which was to be covered by Pdvsa, along with the freight cost reaching around $20 million, would be “paid” with the crude already loaded on the tanker.
The crude was then sold in international markets. The profits from the sale were divided among the operators and their protectors – El Aissami, Cabello, Rodríguez – creating a fraudulent scheme that drained tens of millions of barrels of crude from Pdvsa between 2021 and 2022.
This operation was repeated numerous times, generating “sales” of crude in Pdvsa’s accounting records that, in reality, did not result in the corresponding revenues. Over two years of fraudulent operations, the debt from false sales increased the accounting debt to $21 billion.
Additionally, Iliopoulos established a strategic partnership with Colonel Pérez Suárez to lease his ships directly to Pdvsa to facilitate the swift and discrete loading of crude.
The investigation has determined that the Pérez-Suárez-Iliopoulos duo loaded seven tankers under this scheme, in which the crude shipments simply vanished without leaving a trace in the accounting records.
Alessandro Bazzoni, another broker who also had irregular dealings with Colonel Pérez Suárez and other high-ranking officials at Pdvsa.
Tankers Under Suspicion
In breaking news, Primer Informe confirmed that the vessel MT Oreo remains seized by Pdvsa by court order and has not been claimed by its owners, operators George Moundreas and Alessandro Bazzoni.
So far, neither Moundreas nor Bazzoni have contacted Venezuelan authorities to make a claim about the ship or provide explanations regarding the destination of the cargo aboard the tanker MT Nikel, which they used under false names (including FortOne) to fraudulently transport crude from Venezuela.
As is known, when the regime’s Anti-Corruption Police operation began months ago, the FortOne (actually MT Nikel) set sail “hurriedly” despite lacking authorization, with Venezuelan maritime agents onboard. Once in international waters, the captain dropped the agents off on a drifting raft until they were rescued by the Venezuelan Coast Guard.
Moundreas and Bazzoni, who manage a joint fortune of $2 billion, are also linked to a series of allegedly fraudulent transactions involving Álex Saab and his partner Álvaro Pulido, the Kalil brothers, Alejandro Arroyo, and Miguel Silva.
Bazzoni is connected with the Mexican operator Joaquín Leal Jiménez and several joint accounts in Dubai managed by financier José Luis Chávez Calva. Both Bazzoni and Leal Jiménez are under sanctions from the U.S. Treasury, which is also investigating the recent corruption cases within Pdvsa.
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