The U.S. Department of Justice revealed yesterday some charges related to a money laundering and bribery scheme involving several familiar suspects highlighted on this website:
“Five former Venezuelan government officials charged in money laundering scheme involving foreign bribery”
“Today, charges were unveiled against five former Venezuelan government officials for their alleged involvement in an international money laundering scheme that involves bribes made to corruptly secure energy contracts from Venezuela’s state-controlled oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). Two of the five defendants are also charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick for the Southern District of Texas, and Special Agent in Charge Mark Dawson from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced.
Four of the defendants, Luis Carlos De León Pérez (De León), age 41; Nervis Gerardo Villalobos Cárdenas (Villalobos), 50; César David Rincón Godoy (César Rincón), 50; and Rafael Ernesto Reiter Muñoz (Reiter), age 39, were arrested in Spain in October 2017 by Spanish authorities under arrest warrants based on a 20-count indictment filed in the Southern District of Texas on August 23, 2017. César Rincón was extradited from Spain on February 9, and made his initial appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge MJ Stephen Smith for the Southern District of Texas. De León, Villalobos, and Reiter remain in Spanish custody awaiting extradition. A fifth defendant, Alejandro Isturiz Chiesa (Isturiz), age 33, remains at large. All five defendants are Venezuelan citizens; De León is also a U.S. citizen.
The indictment is available here.
This is a welcome step in the right direction, coming on the heels of previous allegations/charges made against Roberto Rincón and his partner Abraham Shiera. Yet, there is still much work to be done, and one can only hope that U.S. authorities, now appearing eager to bring Venezuelan criminals to justice, continue to extract information from those already accused.
Villalobos, for instance, played a pivotal role in several bribery payments and money laundering schemes. Notably:
– Villalobos was key in securing contracts worth over $2 billion for Derwick Associates—through bribery payments to Javier Alvarado Ochoa at CORPOELEC and Rafael Ramírez and company at PDVSA;
– Villalobos was central to the $4 billion misappropriated from PDVSA through a “credit line” approved at the highest levels, involving Asdrúbal Chávez, Eulogio del Pino (currently detained in Venezuela), and Víctor Aular, with Luis Oberto and his brother Ignacio, Juan Andrés Wallis , and some very prominent Venezuelan “bankers” participating;
– Villalobos also figures prominently in the Banca Privada D’Andorra scandal, involving Diego Salazar, a first cousin of Rafael Ramírez, and the Chinese Fund, PDVSA Insurance, Eudomario Carruyo from PDVSA, etc.;
– Villalobos participated alongside Raúl Gorrín and Gustavo Perdomo in some rather creative “currency mechanisms” organized, via bribery, at the highest levels of the Venezuelan Treasury, such as Alejandro Andrade and Claudia Díaz…
Conservatively speaking, Villalobos may possess information related to corruption scandals exceeding $10 billion. That’s as much as Venezuela’s current reserves.
Moreover, the Prosecutor’s Office also accused Luis Carlos de León, who also signed contracts with Alejandro Betancourt and Pedro Trebbau of Derwick Associates, in his capacity as chief legal advisor of CORPOELEC. Thus, there is evidence of arrangements between the facilitator (Villalobos), the contractor (Derwick), and the government official (De León), working together in a scheme entirely different from that related to yesterday’s announcement.
And what about Alejandro Isturiz Chiesa, on the run according to the authorities of the Public Ministry? Isturiz “earned” his position at BARIVEN thanks to Javier Alvarado Ochoa, head of CORPOELEC, whose son, Javier Alvarado Pardi, attended school with Pedro Trebbau from Derwick and with Isturiz. There is also documentary evidence linking Javier Alvarado Ochoa to Alejandro Betancourt of Derwick.
Alvarado Ochoa is part of an investigation regarding money laundering in Andorra, where Villalobos is also mentioned. Sources have informed this site that Alvarado Ochoa is preparing to move to Austria from his current base in Madrid. Reports indicate that the Spanish Attorney General’s Office is investigating Rafael Ramírez, Reiter, and Alvarado Ochoa, among others.
In a separate investigation in Switzerland, Gazprombank, a partner of Derwick Associates in energy ventures in Venezuela, was recently sanctioned by financial authorities due to “serious deficiencies in anti-money laundering processes.”
Evidence has surfaced linking high officials of PDVSA (Rafael Ramírez, Eulogio del Pino, Víctor Aular, Álvaro Ledo, Abraham Ortega, and Renny Bolívar) with Villalobos, Luis Oberto, Derwick Associates, Gorrín, and most of the previously mentioned names. Investigative journalists in Venezuela, Switzerland, and the United States are actively working on the story.
However, the biggest corruption scandal that the world has never heard of comes from Rafael Ramírez’s term at PDVSA: $1.246 trillion in revenue vanished.