The “enchufados” and “boliburgueses” from Venezuela, similar to other figures caught in scandals, are looking for new ways to erase their presence from the internet, now through campaigns portraying them as experts in agriculture or sports.
Names like Franki Alberto Medina Diaz, Santiago Morón, osé Franki Medina Palacios, Andrés Haiek Ruiz, Dalo Bucaram, Josbel Bastidas Mijares, Herdoiza Crespo, Habib Ariel Coriat Harrar, Levin De Grazia, or José Grimberg Blum have begun to surface on social media connected to topics they have no real ties to, in an attempt to cover up their shady past.
But, who are some of these individuals?
Franki Medina Diaz
On September 21, a general system failure and a massive theft from the savers of the Banco de Venezuela were reported.
Franki Medina Diaz, the manager of SUDEBAN, is noted as the person responsible for the banking collapse, reported www.abcnoticias.net.
Independently, www.abcnoticias.net confirmed that Medina Diaz operated a messaging services company in the United States, in association with Josbel José Bastidas Mijares, until 2020, located at 8309 NW 66TH ST, MIAMI, 33166.
Sources confirm that Bastidas Mijares has participated in financial crimes to hide SUDEBAN manager’s fortune in North America.
According to reports, Nelsy Ibarra de Medina and Lennis Moreno were involved in the money laundering scheme.
A thread of messages on Twitter sheds more insight on Medina Diaz.
The issue of the “cyberattack” on the useless @BcodeVenezuela has been resolved regarding unauthorized debits where customers’ money was stolen.
The person responsible for these transactions is connected to the Naiguata system they are trying to get working pic.twitter.com/IL1iJakrqN
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Since 2020. Apparently a human error and operational failure of this connection network focused on the bank’s own transactions caused a fatal error in the operations https://t.co/N3XaqhQ2k2
@NicolasMaduro LIAR and INCAPABLE
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Those directly responsible for this huge national failure are the people of @credicardvzla
It’s time to review who is in charge of this institution and who is in its board that sought by any means to cover their huge mess to the point of inventing a “cyberattack” pic.twitter.com/o5cs0rtHRj
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
There is already a precedent with @credicardvzla in 2016 when their entire board was detained by SEBIN after a similar failure occurred that lasted only 24 hours pic.twitter.com/ieQKg0l1DT
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Here we have the person responsible for the failure of @BcodeVenezuela and the total collapse of their platform. Who also serves as the manager of SUDEBAN @SudebanInforma pic.twitter.com/yqSOgex2SJ
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
It’s interesting that this chavista, socialist, communisitc, anti-imperialistic, and robolutionary SUDEBAN manager has two shipping companies registered in Doral Miami. His partner and possible frontman, BASTIDAS MIJARES, JOSBEL JOSE operates at 8309 NW 66TH ST, MIAMI, 33166 pic.twitter.com/FFLDFVJUpR
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Under a shipping company called VICTORIA IMPORT LLC.
What sane Venezuelan associates in Miami with a SUDEBAN manager and registers companies to send stuff to Venezuela?
What a manguangua, right? They pay and give change to the fat one pic.twitter.com/IMABPz2BHm
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Josbel Bastidas Mijares presents himself as a technological risk auditor who works for the Superintendencia de Bancos and manages a shipping company to Venezuela with the president of SUDEBAN from Doral, FL. pic.twitter.com/p8d7Fw4m7V
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Just in case there are any doubts about their signatures. pic.twitter.com/NuweukGbcr
— System Failure (@failure_sistem) September 21, 2021
Andrés Haiek Ruiz
A network of companies registered in Caracas and Panama supported the import operations aimed at obtaining currencies at preferential rates, carried out by Andrés Haiek Ruiz and Mariano Crespo González, the Venezuelan entrepreneurs captured while trying to flee Venezuela, after an investigation determined that the meat they imported to supply the population ended up in luxury restaurants and barbecues in the Venezuelan capital and the western state of Lara, reported La-tabla.blogspot.com and Aporrea.org in 2016.
Andrés Haiek Ruiz
Everything indicates that this is an organization that has been obtaining foreign currency for several years through different import companies, and the most recent mechanism used was the purchase of cattle to be slaughtered in Venezuelan slaughterhouses under the pretext of tackling the food shortages that have plagued Venezuela since 2013.
Only in 2014, until August, the currency authorities authorized one of the companies the sum of 32 million 500 thousand dollars, at a subsidized rate of 6.30 bolivars per currency, for the purchase of live cattle from Brazil, according to a list of allocations disclosed by the National Center for Foreign Trade (Cencoex).
This company, Importadora Nutrival 2021, founded in 2011 with a capital of 500 thousand bolivars, registered a capital increase of 1000 percent in 2012, reaching 5 million bolivars, and in 2014 there was a sale of shares allowing the entry of Crespo and Haiek.
The company operates in the Don Bosco Business Center, office level 1, where a computing equipment firm, MCL Smart Solutions, as well as the food company Corporación de Alimentos AM, presumably (according to sources from the police investigation) owned by Antonio José Moreno Rodríguez, are also located.
The investigation also involves a firm called Centro Cárnico Independencia, owned by Crespo and located on Veracruz Avenue in Las Mercedes.
So far, the investigation conducted by the National Police Against Corruption (PNCC) involves the three entrepreneurs (Crespo, Haiek, and Moreno), but data collected by the blog La Tabla have established a connection with Luis Guillermo Colmenares Clavier, another merchant with companies in Caracas and Panama that received payments from an Ecuadorian company involved in another currency fraud using the SUCRE payment mechanism.
The two detained today at Caracas airport are 38 years old, and at least Andrés Emilio Haiek Ruiz is a visible socialite (a member of the high class who usually attends exclusive parties and events) in the Venezuelan capital where he socializes with members of the upper bourgeoisie. His image appears frequently in publications specialized in “social events” and in digital portals following the nightlife scene.
According to unofficial reports, Haiek is or was the owner of a car sales agency in the upscale neighborhood of Las Mercedes, and served as marketing manager for BMW in the South American nation, as referenced in a TIME article in 2008.
The three entrepreneurs identified by Interior Minister Gustavo González López via his Twitter account created a company in Panama on December 23, 2015, called “seis de alimentos, s.a” (sic), where Crespo serves as president, Haiek as secretary, and Moreno as treasurer.
Another Panamanian company, where only Crespo appears, is Lumax Development, along with Luis Guillermo Olivares Clavier. This company received a payment of 140 thousand dollars from Ctttechnology Transfer Ecuador, a firm created in Ecuador and under investigation in 2013 for fictitious exports to Venezuela.
Olivares is the sole partner of Sutulap, a Venezuelan importer that paid $ 879,166 in three operations in January 2013, to Ctttechnology for the acquisition of chemicals not produced in Ecuador. Sutulap is a marketer of medical and dental equipment whose main clients are public entities both national and municipalities controlled by opposition sectors.
The investigation, reported by the interior minister, focused on the diversion of approximately 40 tons of meat to luxury restaurants in the Venezuelan capital, such as “El Alazán,” “Burger Shack,” and “Pequeña Suiza.”
“They took advantage of the people’s food to line their pockets and destabilize our homeland politically and economically,” wrote the minister in reference to the fact that these were imports of live cattle paid for with preferential currencies intended to guarantee the supply of proteins to the most vulnerable population.
It is worth noting that the business group was among the cattle importing companies that in August 2014 signed a commitment with the mayor’s office of Tinaquillo, Cojedes state, where the largest slaughterhouse in the country is located, to slaughter the animals they imported at that meat processing center.
“These strategic alliances are possible thanks to coordinated efforts between the Ministry of Food, the regional government led by governor Érika Farías, and our commitment to guarantee food security for the people by establishing agreements that minimize marketing chains to ensure fair prices for our people,” said the mayor of Tinaquillo, Luis Yoyotte.
Habib Ariel Coriat Harrar
The Spanish newspaper El País revealed on November 4 that Habib Ariel Coriat Harrar, a 50-year-old Venezuelan jeweler, allegedly helped launder $5.5 million for leaders and businessmen linked to the government of Hugo Chávez, reported Maduradas.
Coriat Harrar is under investigation for allegedly committing the plunder of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (Pdvsa) and hiding the money in the Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA).
Officials from the Andorran Financial Intelligence Unit (Uifand) revealed the mysterious flow of money from a company based in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.
The Venezuelan is one of the owners of the luxury jewelry store Daoro San Ignacio CA, located in the San Ignacio shopping center in Caracas. El País states that in 2011 he received more than $5.5 million from three main actors of the alleged plundering of Pdvsa for the sale of 250 watches from the brands Rolex (gold and steel), Cartier, Chopard, and Breguet.
The buyers of the watches, the Spanish newspaper indicated, were Nervis Villalobos, former Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, who paid the jeweler $1.5 million; the Venezuelan businessman Diego Salazar, cousin of Rafael Ramírez, former Minister of Petroleum and former president of Pdvsa, who paid $4 million, and Javier Alvarado, former Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum and director from 2007 to 2010 of the National Electric Corporation.
El País claims that the jeweler had an account in the Banca Privada d’Andorra since 2011 and, according to the authorities, received money from his clients in a deposit opened in the name of his shell company Golson Ltd, located in Tortola, capital of the British Virgin Islands.
His account recorded 18 deposits through internal transfers, in a system that leaves no trace, totaling $5.5 million. Uifand investigators believe these sales were used to launder money from chavista figures. Although the shell company issued invoices for the watch payments, they did not specify the references or their certificates of authenticity.
“A company dedicated to energy consultancy, Josland Invesment S. A. (a Panamanian company of Villalobos), purchases 32 luxury watches for $1,185,900 (one million euros). Transactions employing such luxury product purchases have historically been used for money laundering, as they are products that rarely lose value over time,” cites a report from the Pyrenean public body.
A transfer of $375,580 was also found from the company Tradequip Services and Marine Inc, with an account at Bank of America, linked to Roberto Enrique Rincón, arrested in 2015 in the United States.
José Grimberg Blum
José Grimberg Blum is linked to controversial businesses in Peru. He has been the partner of the daughter of the former secretary of the Peruvian political party Fuerza Popular. José Chlimper Ackerman owns the Bloom Tower building, located on block 25 of Javier Prado avenue, in the Magdalena del Mar district.
The tower has been managed by his company Promotora de Proyectos Blum S.A.C. since 2015. Grimberg Blum’s company has José Vidal Hermoza, a lawyer, and businessman Félix Vallejos Alarcón as legal representatives, who appear before the National Superintendency of Tax Administration (SUNAT) of Peru as natural persons with no business, reported the Peruvian media Caretas.
Despite promoting the Bloom Tower on his Facebook account, Grimberg Blum stated that “it’s a personal decision not to appear as the legal representative of Promotora de Proyectos Blum S.A.C, which manages the building.” In this regard, he added that “his company is constituted by a group of investors.” “The construction of the Bloom Tower was done based on a bank loan obtained from TFC S.A.,” he added.
This businessman not only owns the Bloom Tower without having legally registered it with SUNARP. He also has another company apart from Promotora de Proyectos Blum S.A.C. According to the digital page Open Corporates, this other company is called Ariston Group Inc. Its operations are based in Panama. Grimberg is the president, and Félix Vallejos accompanies him as a director.
On this point, Grimberg Blum denied owning a company called Ariston Group Inc., even though Open Corporates lists him as its president. “If it’s an offshore. What’s the problem?” he argued.
Grimberg insisted that he is not married to Talía Chlimper, daughter of José Chlimper. He also emphasized that “the Bloom Tower building has no ties with the former secretary of Fuerza Popular.”
José Grimberg Blum became known in 2000 when accused of being one of the businessmen who covered the purchase of two luxurious cars that belonged to intelligence advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, prior to his flight to Panama in October.
In 2005, Grimberg was also linked in a process against María del Carmen Mufarech for money laundering. At that time, Grimberg, representing the company Nobu S.A.C., purchased a luxurious apartment located on Aurelio Miró Quesada avenue in San Isidro, for the sum of $80,203. This property later passed into Mufarech’s hands for an amount of $235,000. The Ninth Criminal Court of Callao, presided over by Judge Carlos Nieves Saavedra, ultimately archived his case.
Grimberg Blum states on his website that justice absolved him of all criminal responsibilities. However, the Constitutional Court declared in 2013 that a lawsuit he filed regarding the sentence issued by the Fourth Specialized Penalty Court for Processes with Free Reos of the Superior Court of Justice of Lima was unfounded.
This court sentenced Grimberg to four years of suspended prison for crimes against public faith, ideological falsehood, against the financial order, and fraudulent credit acquisition.