The relationship between Ramón Carretero Napolitano, a prominent Panamanian businessman with extensive business dealings in Cuba, and Nicolás Maduro’s regime is quite the spectacle. It began in 2013, during Hugo Chávez’s final days, and continues to this day. On behalf of the Venezuelan state, Carretero and his brothers constructed gyms, a baseball stadium, and a convention center in Venezuela. They also renovated a hotel and imported toys, tires, and household appliances worth about 769 million dollars.
Favors flowed in both directions. Companies owned by Juan Carlos López Tovar and his then-wife, Iriamni Malpica Flores, niece of Cilia Flores (the wife of the Venezuelan leader), received at least 5.8 million dollars in payments from the Carretero Napolitano companies in 2014 alone.
While Maduro’s regime showered the Panamanian businessman with lucrative contracts and his political nephew received millions in dollars, they also traveled together on private jets and became business partners in Panama.
These are the main findings of a collaborative investigation by Transparency Venezuela in Exile, the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), the newspaper La Prensa in Panama, and Armando.Info. This investigation was based on leaked documents revealing financial transactions, checks, emails, letters, and credit documentation related to López Tovar, Iriamni Malpica Flores, and Ramón Carretero Napolitano’s companies at AllBank in Panama and the Bank of Orinoco in Curacao between 2014 and 2015.
Both banks, which were shut down by their respective authorities after failing to meet obligations to their depositors and other irregularities, were owned by Víctor Vargas Irausquín, known as the banker of Chávez, due to the rise of his BOD financial group in Venezuela during the Commander’s time.
This journalistic alliance systematically organized the leaked records, consulted judicial files, checked public registries from various countries, and interviewed several sources across three countries.
López Tovar, then 38 years old, was also a partner in Venezuela with his brother-in-law Carlos Malpica Flores (known as the favorite nephew of Cilia Flores). An avid horse enthusiast, he received payments transferred from Carretero Napolitano’s companies in 2014 and then redirected part of that money to his wife Iriamni’s bank accounts for her expenses, according to bank statements included in the leaks.
While Venezuelans endured one of their most challenging years of shortages, Cilia Flores’ niece and her partner were regulars at high-end Panamanian stores, such as those in the Félix B. Maduro shopping mall (unrelated to Nicolás Maduro). For instance, the purchases the couple made in 2014 seemed to warrant a grand celebration that Christmas: on just December 23, they spent nearly 9,000 dollars at Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Salvatore Ferragamo.
Strategically Positioned Pieces
The involved parties moved their pieces early on. Maduro, then Vice President, in November 2012, appointed Carlos Erik Malpica Flores, nephew of Cilia Flores and referred to as the First Combatant in Chavista jargon, as the main director of the Pro-Patria 2000 Foundation, a state entity that initially had no budget in dollars.
Then, in April 2013, as Acting President confirmed following Chávez’s death until the elections that same month, Maduro placed Pro-Patria 2000 under the control of the Presidential Office. Once confirmed as President through a close margin amid fraud suspicions against Henrique Capriles, he appointed Cilia Flores’ son, Walter Jacob Gavidia Flores, to head Pro-Patria in May 2014, as noted in Official Gazette issues 40,045, 40,137, and 40,405.
Iriamni Malpica Flores was winding down her tenure at the National Electoral Council (CNE) in 2014. By 2015, at the age of 40, her name started appearing as a director of multiple Panamanian firms that were later sanctioned by Panama’s authorities for irregular dealings.
In August 2013, Ramón Carretero Napolitano and his brother Vicente opened a branch of their Panamanian company, Landscape Vision Corporation (Lanvicorp), in Caracas.
Contracts and Suspicious Transactions
With the Flores family at the helm, between August 2013 and February 2014, Ramón Carretero Napolitano’s company signed three contracts with the Pro-Patria 2000 Foundation totaling approximately 700 million dollars for civil works construction, according to documents from the National Development Fund (Fonden) also obtained for this report, and data from the National Contractor Registry (RNC).
These involved the construction of 20 vertical gyms—structures for sports practice in popular areas—the renovation of the Guaicamacuto and Gran Caribe hotels in Vargas state (now La Guaira), and the erection of a Convention Center in that coastal region, as well as the Hugo Chávez baseball stadium in La Rinconada, in southwestern Caracas.
Between 2013 and 2014, once the contracts were signed, Lanvicorp received at least 138 million dollars in disbursements from Fonden as an advance for the projects in its accounts at AllBank and the Orinoco Bank, according to bank extracts in the leaks. Financial statements revealed that shortly afterward, Lanvicorp and other Ramón Carretero Napolitano companies, with accounts in those financial institutions, transferred money to accounts linked to Cilia Flores’ niece and her then-partner, López Tovar.
On May 28, 2014, the Caribbean Logistics Corporation S.A., another company belonging to the Carretero Napolitano family, approved a payment of five million dollars to López Tovar. The order was signed by Ramón himself, just two weeks after Maduro’s government disbursed 20.6 million dollars from Fonden to Lanvicorp.
A Reuters investigation, published in September 2012, revealed that between 2005 and 2012, Fonden, created by Chávez in 2005 to bypass financial controls of other powers, managed 100 billion dollars.
The operation repeated in June 2014: on the 25th of that month, Lanvicorp received another transfer of 20.6 million dollars from Fonden into its account at the Bank of Orinoco. The next day, López Tovar deposited a check for 500,000 dollars issued by Carretero Napolitano from the same Lanvicorp, according to the leaked documents.
The transfers alerted Panama. Allbank’s compliance department opened internal files to investigate suspicious transactions involving the López-Malpica couple, according to the documents obtained for this investigation. Allbank employees suspected irregularities in early July 2014, after López Tovar deposited that 500,000 dollar check issued by Carretero Napolitano’s company.
“In our monitoring system, we have an unusual transaction reflected in Mr. Juan Carlos López Tovar’s account,” a compliance officer warned on July 7. Furthermore, they added, “His profile does not match the flow of funds carried out. A clarification of the funds’ origin is required.” This thread of emails also referenced the bank products that López’s wife maintained at the bank: “Transfers deposited to Mrs. Iriamni Malpica are intended for her expenses.”
Allbank’s compliance department opened a second file when the aforementioned five million dollar check was deposited into the account of Technical Support Trading S.A, registered in Panama and whose final beneficiary was López Tovar, issued by Caribbean Logistics Corporation. The check was accompanied by a note from the businessman stating that the funds corresponded to “dividends” he received from this company.
From the Caribbean Logistics Corporation, Carretero also sent two other notes recommending López Tovar and Iriamni Malpica to Allbank, days before the couple applied for a mortgage to buy an apartment in Panama City. The company stated in that letter that he “works as an administrator” and detailed that Cilia Flores’ niece was employed as an “accountant” for that company.
This journalistic alliance emailed questionnaires to López Tovar, who did not respond. Despite repeated attempts by this team, Iriamni Malpica Flores could not be reached by phone, email, or social media.
In response to this edition’s inquiries, Ramón Napolitano relayed through his lawyer, Marcela Araúz Quintero. The attorney claimed, despite a questionnaire having been sent several days prior, that he needed “reasonable time to verify the information”, as “we need to locate the data and related documentation.”
The compliance department presented the cases in internal meetings at Allbank and, throughout the process, representatives of the Panamanian businessmen provided evidence, including the contracts Lanvicorp had secured with the Venezuelan government. They submitted, among other things, a PowerPoint presentation with photos of the projects’ progress, and organized a trip for bank authorities to their Caracas headquarters to demonstrate the supposed transparency of the company and the lawful nature of the funds.
At that time, Allbank allowed the accounts to remain operational. They ignored the family relationships between López Tovar and Iriamni Malpica Flores with the First Lady of Venezuela and overlooked the fact that other relatives, like Carlos Malpica Flores and Walter Gavidia Flores, were executives at the institution that awarded lucrative contracts to Carretero Napolitano’s company. In November 2015, after continuing investigations by the compliance department, Allbank finally decided to close all of its accounts and sent a Suspicious Operation Report to Panama’s Financial Analysis Unit (UAF).
Two years later, in July 2017, Carlos Malpica Flores was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, while the government of Panama sanctioned 16 companies registered in that country linked to the Flores and López Tovar, including Technical Support Trading, the same firm that received millions from Ramón Carretero Napolitano’s companies in 2014. In June 2022, the Biden administration lifted the sanctions against Malpica Flores, who, after his role at the Pro-Patria 2000 foundation, became the treasurer of the Republic of Venezuela and vice president of the state oil company, Pdvsa.
Flying Together
López Tovar and Carretero Napolitano maintained a close relationship from 2014, just as the businessman benefitted from public contracts. Not only did they share dozens of private flights connecting Venezuela and Panama, but the political nephew of Cilia Flores and the businessman also became partners in three companies.
Between 2014 and 2015, they traveled together on private jets at least 28 times, as per Panama and Venezuela’s migration offices data, also obtained by this journalistic alliance. Many of those private flights occurred between March and May 2014, the same period when the Maduro regime made substantial payments to the Panamanian businessman.
On March 17, 2014, they flew from Albrook Airport in Panama aboard the jet HP-1776 to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, serving Caracas. Three days after their arrival, on March 20, Nicolás Maduro’s government officially awarded Lanvicorp the contract for the construction of the Hugo Chávez baseball stadium, now known as Simón Bolívar Monumental Stadium. That same day, they returned to Panama in a private plane, according to official records.
A similar situation unfolded in May: they traveled to Venezuela on the 22nd and returned on the 24th. Four days later, Carretero signed the request with his company’s board to pay López Tovar five million dollars. Another instance: on June 2, they traveled back together on a private flight to Panama, and three days later, Fonden sent a payment of 20.6 million dollars in favor of Lanvicorp, according to a summary of the account at the Bank of Orinoco included in the leaks.
The partnership between Maduro’s political nephew and Carretero Napolitano was formalized in May when the Panamanian businessman told the board of Caribbean Logistics Corporation that López Tovar would receive five million dollars as “dividends.” But that was just the beginning.
On June 24, they established the Panamanian companies Galeras del Este and Grupo Carrelop, the latter named to combine their last names. The scope of both companies is broad and includes everything from real estate business and general construction to the rental of cargo planes, small aircraft, and helicopters. Additionally, López Tovar took on roles as secretary and treasurer on the board of Pro Hogares SA, whose president is Carretero Napolitano two weeks later.
The shared private flights became more frequent that year when, between late September and late October, they made three round trips between Panama and Venezuela. On November 13, two days after sharing one of these flights, Technical Support Trading SA, the Panamanian company whose ultimate beneficiary is López Tovar, received another check for three million dollars at Allbank, although this time the bank did not disclose who sent the money.
The Panama prosecutor’s office was already knocking on Allbank’s doors in January 2015 to investigate Carretero Napolitano’s companies’ bank transactions at that institution, as revealed in internal emails from the bank. Just as it had done with Iriamni Malpica Flores and López Tovar, the financial institution also opened internal files to analyze the flows that Carretero Napolitano’s companies were sending and receiving upon request by Commerzbank.
Despite inquiries into the origins and destinations of the funds, the financial relationship between the couple and Carretero thrived. Lanvicorp sent monthly checks to López Tovar between January and October 2015. At least 14 checks were issued from Caribbean Logistics Corporation and Lanvicorp totaling 298,500 dollars. Among these checks, there is a monthly one for 2,719.85 dollars, and in at least two instances, it was recorded as the payment for an apartment at The Pearl building, the official address of López Tovar and Iriamni Malpica Flores, a property they purchased that same year with a mortgage. The amount of that loan, plus another collateral with Allbank to acquire two cars, matched the monthly payment of 2,719.85 dollars to the bank.
Suspicions from the Panamanian justice system, as well as the delays and failures in the Venezuelan projects, did not stop the good fortune of the Carretero Napolitanos with the Venezuelan government. Both Caribbean Logistics Corporation, which has been operating in Cuba for over two decades, and Lanvicorp, secured more public contracts between 2016 and 2018, no longer for construction, but for goods supplies.
On December 9, 2016, the state-owned Venezuelan Corporation of Foreign Trade (Corpovex), a holding created by Maduro to centralize public imports, signed contract number 0139 with Lanvicorp for 4.5 million dollars, at the request of the Ministry of the Presidential Office, to purchase toys.
One month later, in January 2017, Corpovex signed with Lanvicorp another deal worth over 37 million dollars for the “acquisition of technological equipment” for the so-called Carnet de la Patria, a card that stores user information and has been classified as a social control tool by Maduro’s government.
Moreover, Caribbean Logistics Corporation obtained three more contracts from public entities in Venezuela, collectively amounting to over eight million dollars and 17.3 million euros. With these agreements, the Carretero Napolitano company committed to sell 3.7 million toys, 4,843 appliances, and 77,610 tires.
A Life of Luxury
While Venezuelans suffered through one of the toughest years of shortages and plunged into a decade-long crisis, Cilia Flores’ niece and her partner were living in extravagant luxury in Panama.
Their life in Panama included private jet travels, exotic destinations, luxurious apartments, and extravagant purchases. Their flight logs from those years resembled those of a mogul or a transnational executive. From 2014 to 2023, López Tovar made 181 private jet flights, according to Panama’s migration records. Not only did they frequently fly back and forth between Panama and Venezuela, but they also ventured to other destinations between 2014 and 2017, visiting the United States (before the sanctions imposed by the U.S. government), Germany, Colombia, Costa Rica, Barbados, Curacao, and Saint Martin.
The couple’s prosperity was also visible through their property acquisitions from 2014, as Carretero Napolitano’s dealings with the Venezuelan regime thrived. López Tovar was engaged in real estate operations involving three properties priced above three million dollars at the time of purchase.
In August 2014, López Tovar and Malpica Flores bought an apartment in the Pearl at the Sea building along with two parking spaces for 835,000 dollars. It was a nearly new property in a 70-story skyscraper facing the sea in Panama City. Visitors are welcomed into a luxurious two-story lobby in a building with a pool, gym, and high-speed elevators, as detailed on the condominium’s website.
How did they acquire that property? Of the total amount, 501,000 dollars were covered by a mortgage loan from Allbank, obtained with a recommendation letter signed by Carretero Napolitano. Eventually, this property was sold on December 14, 2017, to the company Inversiones Portofino Corp for 740,000 dollars, as recorded in the Public Registry of Panama. One of Portofino Corp’s executives, José Manuel Martínez López, was a partner of López Tovar in the Panamanian company Parques de Lefevre, SA, formed in 2016.
López Tovar bought a second property in August 2017 for 930,000 dollars, located in the Caguamo N°1 Condominium, which, according to Panama’s Public Registry documents, is still in his name.
He also acquired a property for 1.5 million dollars on June 7, 2018. For this transaction, the businessman appears as the trustor of the Capital Trust & Finance trust, benefiting Capital Bank Inc. The purpose of the trust is to secure a loan for the property purchase. He sold it in December 2021 for 1.3 million dollars.
Iriamni Malpica Flores and her partner also enjoyed showcasing their economic well-being. They frequently shopped at luxury stores like Gucci, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Dolce Gabbana, and Hugo Boss. They spent nearly 50,000 dollars on products from these brands over a year and a half, according to Allbank credit card statements from 2014 and 2015, leaked for this investigation.
The relationship between Ramón Carretero Napolitano and Maduro’s regime still persists today. Not even the years-long delays in the construction of the baseball stadium or the renovation of hotels in La Guaira have halted what began nearly the moment Maduro secured the presidency in April 2013.
This collaborative investigation was carried out by Transparency Venezuela in Exile, the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), La Prensa de Panamá, and Armando.Info with the collaboration of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The CLIP team also included Ángela Cantador and Rigoberto Carvajal in the investigation.
