Pedro Trebbau-Lopez, 29 years old and possibly a billionaire.
London – The connections of ACU Chairman Al Cardenas to Hugo Chavez’s associates date back years and involve the defense of individuals tied to fraud, theft, and money laundering. Just the day before yesterday, prior to publishing
an article further revealing the links between Cardenas and some of Venezuela’s most corrupt Boligarchs, I
emailed both Cardenas and his PR representative at the ACU, Laura Rigas, seeking comments. Both read my messages but opted not to
respond. As a blogger aiming for objectivity, I felt it was necessary to give them an opportunity to justify their professional relationship with
the individuals behind Derwick Associates. I also reached out to Joseph DeMaria, an attorney from the Tew Cardenas law firm, representing
Pedro Trebbau-Lopez and Alejandro Betancourt-Lopez in a
$300-million lawsuit against Banco Venezolano de Credito, as well as CEDICE-Libertad’s Oscar Garcia Mendoza and
Rafael Alfonzo.
DeMaria did respond, stating:
Mr. Boyd. I will
refer to the public record.
I am the attorney who was hired as litigation counsel for Mr.
Betancourt and Mr. Trebbau. My firm has never represented Derwick in
this litigation. When I was brought on board earlier this year, I specifically represented these two individuals. And that is who I have appeared for
in this case.
Moreover, despite your frequent mention of Mr. Cardenas in connection with this
litigation, he does not provide any services in this
regard. The litigation is managed solely by me and my team.
I hope this clears
up any misunderstanding about how this litigation is framed.
So, I stand corrected. Mr. Cardenas’s
firm isn’t representing Derwick Associates but instead
represents the two owners of Derwick Associates:
newly-minted billionaires (?) Messrs. Trebbau-Lopez and
Betancourt-Lopez. Cardenas’s firm stands for the owners of Derwick
Associates, not the company itself.
The Tew
Cardenas law firm comprises 23 attorneys. It is not a
500-attorney firm but rather a boutique. Cardenas is the founder and
principal of Tew Cardenas. Mr. DeMaria’s assertion that Mr. Cardenas has
nothing to do with either Derwick Associates or its principals
regarding litigation may be valid. However, how many
clients does he represent? He is the
rainmaker and chief salesman. Who secured the contract, Mr. DeMaria? My
sources in Venezuela indicate that Cardenas himself secured the deal, fully aware of how Derwick’s fortune was acquired, and he envisioned considerable fees from this opportunity along with the potential for a lobbying contract. Can Cardenas claim he has never crossed paths with anyone
from Derwick Associates before? In fact, the decision of the Derwick boys to choose Florida as their venue (a peculiar decision considering the anti-Chavez
feelings of any Florida jury) ties back to a phrase reportedly used by Cardenas during the contract offer: “I don’t lose cases
in my own backyard.”
Al Cardenas (right) with R. Fernandez
Barrueco (left).
Let’s shift focus to another white-collar criminal from Chavez’s circle: Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco,
another Boligarch billionaire who transitioned from parking
cars to becoming a significant contractor for Chavez and involved in money laundering. He was also previously represented by Tew
Cardenas during a conflict
with the Drug Enforcement Administration. DeMaria was his attorney then. So, is this yet another individual unknown to
Cardenas? Can anyone genuinely buy DeMaria’s argument that Cardenas -the founder and principal of Tew Cardenas- is completely unaware of what his associates are doing in representing his law
firm? Mr. DeMaria’s claim seems contrary to photos depicting the
ACU Chairman being friendly with this criminal (see the image). But there’s more. At the same event where Cardenas
was taking pictures with Fernandez Barrueco, top executives from FTI Consulting -Neal Hochberg, Matias Mora Simoes, Jack Dunn IV, Frank Holder
and Erik Miller- were also there, suggesting that both
Cardenas and FTI Consulting have been securing substantial
business contracts from Venezuela’s disreputable crowd for years.
And guess who the Derwick boys enlisted for their “image
consulting”? Yep, FTI
Consulting.
Why stop there? Tew Cardenas is currently representing none other than David Osio of Davos
International Bank. This name is notorious when discussing the
corruption and fraud under the Chavez government. Interestingly, Mr. DeMaria also serves as the legal counsel for David Osio in a lawsuit
filed by former partners Rodrigo Fernandez and Andres Sotillo.
Is DeMaria claiming now that Cardenas has no involvement here either? Venezuelan financial bloggers have previously claimed that Osio served as FTI Consulting’s “representative” in Caracas, thus providing some context on “banker” David Osio.
David Osio.
David Osio is among the few financial operators who have robbed the Venezuelan populace of hundreds of millions. He is implicated in the ponzi scheme orchestrated by
Francisco Illarramendi, which saw about $550 million of pension funds belonging to Venezuela’s oil workers vanish (with assistance from David Osio’s banks). Specifically in this case, Moris
Beracha, another past
client of FTI Consulting, funneled bribes to a PDVSA official utilizing
Osio’s financial resources. This isn’t Osio’s first financial misconduct. His actions during his tenure at Banco Latino International amidst the Venezuelan banking crisis in the 1990s were scrutinized, as were his dealings at Global Bank and Dollar Savings Bank; the Office
of Thrift Supervision would later deem his actions illegal. Together with others, he falsified documents to misappropriate substantial funds from Enrique Delfino, whose heirs,
expecting those funds to be included in their estate, discovered that their money had disappeared and took him to court. Osio aided Gonzalo
Tirado in acquiring chavista clients for Allen
Stanford’s ponzi scheme. He has also participated in numerous illegal transactions to facilitate PDVSA officials,
chavista ministers, and members of the Bolibourgeoisie –including Derwick
Associates– siphoning and laundering billions. For these operations, Osio likely pocketed millions in commissions and is believed to have engaged major financial institutions like
Goldman Sachs, Bank Bauer, JP Morgan, UBS, CF Monaco, HSBC, Deutsche
Bank, among others, as part of his laundering network. Osio apparently faced issues in Switzerland, concerning operations of D Société Financière Suisse S.A., another platform he utilized to transfer PDVSA’s sums. Osio previously operated in Miami with Mauro Nannini but, due to the lawsuit that Tew
Cardenas is managing, he decided to shut down and relocate to New
York City, where Andres
Coles oversees his affairs. Osio’s financial web extends across Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, the U.S.,
Switzerland, Antigua & Barbuda, and even New Zealand. Fernandez and Sotillo, his
former partners, allege that Osio even exploited his own mother to execute a multi-million dollar fraud.
Andres Coles, Osio’s man in NY
There’s ample material for a book on
corruption in Venezuela, one of the remnants of Hugo Chavez that we will grapple with for many years. I share this as yet another
instance of the type of Venezuelan clients that Tew Cardenas consistently takes on.
I risk sounding like a broken record again, but U.S. authorities would do well to investigate the activities of
David Osio, his ties to FTI Consulting and Tew Cardenas, and how Venezuelan crooks like Fernandez Barrueco, Beracha, Trebbau-Lopez,
Betancourt-Lopez, and Osio exploit the system -with the aid of FTI and
Cardenas, utilizing the commerce stream and financial markets to
launder their ill-gotten gains. Contrary to Mr. DeMaria’s claims,
Al Cardenas appears deeply entrenched in all this. Of course, it’s his choice, but the moral stance of his
public persona as ACU-GOP leader is untenable.