The Chavista corruption, like a plague that damages and rots everything, has left its mark in the form of a deep wound in an electrical crisis that seems endless. This situation stems from the shady deals implemented in Venezuela since Hugo Chávez came to power, which his disastrous successor, Nicolás Maduro, has perfected. Tied to the perverse, chavismo has found in José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero one of its most cruel partners, a fact highlighted by Javier Alvarado’s revelation after presenting evidence to the Spanish judiciary.
Spanish press reports Alvarado—former president of Electricidad de Caracas and Corpoelec, facing trials in the United States, Spain, and Andorra for money laundering of funds from the Venezuelan public treasury—delivered documents to the Spanish National Court that demonstrate the irregular negotiation between Maduro and Zapatero to grant, without bidding, the Termocentro contract to the Spanish company Duro Felguera.
The Venezuelan electrical crisis led the regime to award contracts without bidding in 2008, justifying it by the purported state of emergency. However, the blackouts might have simply been a pretext for shady businesses and spectacular kickbacks. A contract was signed with the Spanish firm Duro Felguera to build a combined cycle power plant—Termocentro—at a cost of €1.5 billion, facilitated by conversations between Rodríguez Zapatero, through his foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, and Nicolás Maduro, who served as Chávez’s foreign minister at the time. The notorious Rafael Ramírez signed the contract.
The Agreement Between Moratinos and Maduro
On October 24, 2008, Miguel Ángel Moratinos and Nicolás Maduro signed the “Framework Cooperation Agreement in Energy Matters between the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Government of the Kingdom of Spain,” following a visit from José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to Caracas in 2005—his visits continue even today—and one by Chávez to Madrid in 2008.
The Moratinos-Maduro agreement appears to have been the context for a series of irregularities.
Such an agreement may have been the backdrop for various irregularities, including the case of the former ambassador in Caracas, Raúl Morodo, who was found to have received irregular payments from PDVSA. Now, this includes the contract with Duro Felguera, a company accused of paying hefty bribes in exchange for the contract to construct works in Termocentro.
The contract was signed on May 29, 2009, by Rafael Ramírez, as previously mentioned, involving the construction of the El Sitio thermal power plant in Miranda, as part of the Termocentro complex.
The actual emergency in the matter appeared to be the payments, given that the company only completed 10 percent of the work. These irregularities were extensively investigated and reported by Venezuela Política.
Electric Crisis as an Excuse for Grand Embezzlement
On the pages of Venezuela Política, it’s been demonstrated how the severe Venezuelan electrical crisis merely served as an excuse for Chavista corruption to execute a multimillion-dollar embezzlement from the national treasury. For instance, we reported that between September 2008 and June 2009, Electricidad de Caracas granted at least USD 1,637,179,180.80 in contracts to the controversial Derwick Associates S.A and Duro Felguera.
We noted that during a board meeting of Electricidad de Caracas, the exact date of which is unknown but estimated to have occurred between September and December 2009, Javier Alvarado sought approval for the offer of two generation units as part of the Rapid Response Generation Project for Greater Caracas, Vargas, and Nueva Esparta, which was assigned to Derwick Associates S.A. The contract price was USD 31,300,000.
Meanwhile, the contract with Duro Felguera S.A. for preliminary works and services for the Termocentro Plant was for USD 215,000,000.
Later, on March 27, 2009, the executives of Electricidad de Caracas, including Javier Alvarado, Genel Severeyn, Alberto Urdaneta, and Nicolás Veracierta, sought authorization to request a bid from Derwick Associates S.A., which was approved.
Likewise, Alvarado also requested the extension of the contract with Duro Felguera S.A. for preliminary works and services for the Termocentro Generation Plant on December 3, 2008, with a validity until March 31, 2009. This was a previously agreed expansion or Addeundum. Signing complementary contracts was the strategy used to extend unfinished contracts intentionally, as discussed in Venezuela Política.
Other Involved Parties, Other Contracts
The layers of this Chavista corruption scandal were numerous, as highlighted by Venezuela Política concerning Nervis Villalobos Cárdenas, apprehended on October 26, 2017, in Spain due to a U.S. arrest warrant. This was due to allegations of alleged involvement in a bribery scheme related to Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). His extradition was approved on February 9, 2018, but the process was halted.
Furthermore, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court will prosecute him for receiving commissions totaling USD 105.6 million from Duro Felguera, linked to the previously cited €1.5 billion contract. The Spanish prosecutor seeks a 9-year prison sentence and confiscation of assets.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Corruption and Organized Crime in Spain has also charged Ángel Antonio Del Valle Suárez and Juan Carlos Torres Inclán, high executives of Duro Felguera, with bribing officials from the regime of the late Hugo Chávez to benefit the company’s interests.
Similarly, Argenis Chávez signed a contract with Duro Felguera S.A. on June 6, 2011, for USD 17,050,000 for work on two electric generation barges at the Josefa Joaquina Sánchez Bastidas generator complex in Vargas.
See in Sin Filtros “Petro like Chávez: chaos, terror, and break with the U.S.”:
Source consulted:
1) Gómez, Teresa. “A former PDVSA executive submits various agreements between Zapatero and Maduro to the judge.” The Objective. Available at: https://theobjective.com/espana/tribunales/2025-07-04/pdvsa-acuerdos-zapatero-maduro/