The De Grazia family, originating from Guayana but with fresh roots in Italy, experienced a sudden shift from gastronomy and law firms to banking. They provided a crucial link that allowed the state-owned PDVSA to evade international sanctions during Tareck El Aissami’s tenure as Oil Czar.
A small bank, Compass Bank & Trust Corp, founded in 2013 in Dominica—classified as a tax haven by the European Union in 2021—served as the pivot for this purpose.
During these years, sanctions against Nicolás Maduro’s regime, particularly affecting its main export product, acted as a burden on Venezuelan oil shipments, which struggled to find alternative ports and so-called spot markets. The method implemented by El Aissami to keep business operational sowed the seeds for what would later be known as the PDVSA-Cripto case: funds from international oil sales subject to sanctions were routed to accounts in Asian countries, where they were laundered and converted into cryptocurrencies, which at the end of the cycle were exchanged for hard currencies and accumulated in the Compass Bank in Dominica. The journey culminated with the arrival of cash in Venezuela.
In this scheme, brothers Carmelo, Levin, and Daniel De Grazia played key roles, serving as visible faces of Bancamiga and a group of businesses across several countries. This trio, along with Samark López, the hidden principal shareholder of the bank and, according to U.S. authorities, a partner and frontman for El Aissami, were arrested during the highly publicized raids conducted by the Maduro government in connection with the PDVSA-Cripto case.
Now, documents reviewed and verified by Armando.info confirm that Compass Bank acted as a channel for funneling funds to PDVSA, which otherwise had no way of receiving money due to international sanctions. However, all of this came at a cost: a portion of the money passing through the vaults of the Caribbean bank was used to pay bribes benefiting not only El Aissami but also other involved parties, including the De Grazia family and Samark López himself.
The dossier of reviewed files includes transfer invoices, the judicial file of the PDVSA-Cripto case, incorporation documents of Compass Bank, and profiles of individuals associated with both institutions, who covertly served as bridges for executing transactions.
The De Grazia Action Table
A document issued on April 30, 2014, by the Commonwealth of Dominica confirms the establishment of Compass Bank Corporation, initiated the previous year, with lawyer Pedro Manuel Mezquita Arcaya as director and president.
Besides being a partner of the De Grazia family in a law firm, the bank, securities houses, and even in film production, Mezquita was also associated with the noted financier Luis Alfonso Oberto Anselmi in the company Comercializadora Inver Publix 797, C.A.
Four years later, the documentation shows the proliferation of directors, partners, and shareholders at Compass Bank. The reviewed list highlights names like Garlina Josefina Requena Franco, Daniel José de Grazia Suárez, and Alfredo Luis Porteles, all directors of Bancamiga, Banca Universal, C.A.
Daniel José is not the only member of the De Grazia Suárez family to eventually be part of Bancamiga’s board. Carmelo De Grazia Suárez and Levin Salvatore De Grazia Suárez also made their mark.
The De Grazia family’s tradition dictates doing everything with relatives. Before their fall from grace, their story dates back to Upata, the agricultural and cattle-raising capital of the Piar municipality in Bolívar state, southeastern Venezuela, where Calabrian immigrant farmers arrived in 1952 during the military dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Palmerino De Grazia, the clan’s patriarch, gained commercial success and recognition in the region with the restaurant La Fontana, serving as a springboard for his grandchildren’s business ventures.
In the last decade, the brothers expanded their gastronomic business in Miami, Florida, with five brands: Bocas, Francisca, Kitchen of the World, Laborejo, and, of course, La Fontana. However, the De Grazias began to attract attention not from food critics but from international financial monitoring agencies, such as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which, in September 2014, received a report of suspicious activity regarding the brothers’ operations.
In the report, compliance officers from JP Morgan Chase Bank in New York raised concerns about “non-transparent transfers” amounting to $200 million from the securities house Intersecurities International Inc. in Panama to a small bank in Barbados, Continental Bank. Intersecurities belonged to the De Grazia family.
The Dossier is Key
The De Grazia family and Compass Bank in Dominica are repeatedly mentioned in the dossier of the PDVSA-Cripto case, which Armando.info accessed.
This extensive document summarizes conversations via messaging applications WhatsApp and WeChat between June and August 2022 among Joselit Ramírez, former president of the National Superintendency of Cryptoassets and Related Activities (Sunacrip), Carmelo De Grazia, and Samark López. In these conversations, the three discussed the success of transactions through Compass Bank and arranged private meetings.
Each transaction concluded when, as documents and consulted sources describe, the money from PDVSA had completed its journey from its accounts at Bancamiga to other accounts, typically in Asia, belonging to petroleum service transport and marketing intermediaries. From there, more complex schemes began, including conversion to cryptocurrency in various countries, such as the United States, and finally to Compass Bank, where applicable fees were deducted.
“Mano [a colloquial abbreviation for ‘brother’ in Venezuela], received the operation,” was a common phrase used by Joselit Ramírez in the records to confirm to Carmelo De Grazia the receipt of payment for bribes.
The dossier mentions a Dubai-based company that was favored in these dealings, Zad Fuel DMCC.
“In the expert analysis, another conversation dated August 30, 2022, revealed that contact Carmelo Nuevo [referring to Carmelo De Grazia] assisted the accused Joselit Ramírez in making fund exchanges [USD], likely belonging to Zad Fuel DMCC, Saud Construction, or individual Malak Al Reen, possibly held in international banks or at Zhejiang Mintai Commercial Bank,” the document details.
A financial operator familiar with the PDVSA-Cripto schemes, whose identity is confidential, explains that Zad Fuel DMCC traded Venezuelan crude oil. In 2022, it received approximately $52 million worth of products from PDVSA, which it still owed.
The owner of Zad Fuel DMCC, Saud Shehatha Alanazi, is a shareholder in another company, S21 Energy DMCC, which also owed nearly $50 million to PDVSA as of August 2022, according to documents from the state-owned company reviewing its debtors.
What happened next? These funds were exchanged for “euros, cryptocurrencies, or fiat money,” consistently through Compass Bank. Samark López, as evidenced in the dossier, was aware of all operations. While specific transfer amounts were not mentioned in the transcripts regarding this particular case.
It was not until 2024 that Venezuelan authorities announced the arrest of El Aissami and López Bello, but since at least 2017, other international institutions had already flagged them as participants and accomplices in criminal acts. That year, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned López and El Aissami for their involvement in drug trafficking.
A note from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) highlighted that the sanctions against Samark López stemmed from his “significant role in international drug trafficking. López provided financial and material support for the international drug trafficking activities of, and acting on behalf of, El Aissami. For over two years, López and others defrauded the U.S. government by engaging in transactions prohibited under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act and related regulations while evading sanctions imposed by OFAC in accordance with the Kingpin Act and related regulations.”
Love Triangles (with Money)
A document from PDVSA reviewed for this story illustrates another example of how transactions at Compass Bank functioned and the profits generated from complex calculations of transfer percentages.
This report concludes that “there was a financial triangulation between Bancamiga, Cripto Exchange (a financial intermediary), and Compass Bank.” In this example, transactions began with the reception of payments in an account in euros of the company TT Forest, in Hong Kong. The specified concept was oil sales. Venezuelan crude, in plain terms.
This scheme aligns with what the financial operator consulted by Armando.info describes, who summarizes the mechanism as follows: when oil tankers carrying Venezuelan oil arrived in China, the purchaser from the Asian country paid with USDT (a cryptocurrency) or in cash. The funds were then received by “ten money changers,” among whom was Bancamiga.
The report continues by noting the first signal captured during the transit concerning a portion of the funds that were paying commissions.
“[The funds] later passed to an account at Compass Bank & Prime Trust with an operational cost of 8%. Notably, the resources in Hong Kong already enjoyed free convertibility and mobility, hence there is no technical explanation for conducting additional operations with other financial structures; therefore, the total operational cost would not have exceeded 5% in any case,” the report asserts.
The triangulation, according to the same document, resulted in two movements that generated illegal commissions and further depleted revenues for the Venezuelan oil industry: “It could raise transaction costs by 16%, and regularly did not bring new cash currencies into the country to settle payments to third parties or cover industry commitments to the Republic’s finances… leading to a lack of foreign currency liquidity in the domestic market, putting downward pressure on the value of the bolívar.”
Proof that the scheme functioned to evade sanctions is found in a point of the document titled Money Circulation through American Structure. It specifies that the money also flowed through Prime Trust, a cryptocurrency custodian that declared bankruptcy in August 2023.
This implied that “at some point in the transaction, the money passes through the United States, even when the resources were in cryptocurrency, creating a high risk for PDVSA’s funds given the existing sanctions.”
Regarding this last point, the report suggests that through triangulation, there were also “agreements with American actors” and justifications for commission charges. All of this impacted PDVSA by hindering the quantification of actual crude sales revenue and complicating the visibility of outflows, payments to third parties, and project executions.
To prevent the dispersion of these profits among numerous money changers, Compass Bank stepped in, according to the same anonymous source who spoke with Armando.info. Thus, funds “were concentrated in Dominica and offered to the highest bidder,” meaning to whoever paid the highest commissions.
The fixed commission for the De Grazias was 2%. “Daily, they could exchange $50 million or more,” the source asserts, equating to about $1 million per day in commissions.
In addition to the transactions recorded in the PDVSA-Cripto case dossier, a bank statement dated April 2022, to which Armando.info had access, relating to a single client of Compass Bank, showed movements of $6.03 million within 30 days.
This client of Compass Bank was Oryx Resources of Venezuela, a company involved in exploration and maintenance of the Carito–Pirital oil field in Monagas, eastern Venezuela, owned by Samark López. Through this account, amounts were transferred to suppliers, ranging from $15 to $100,000 in the reviewed document.
This completed a cycle that began at Bancamiga in Venezuela and ended in Compass Bank in Dominica. All based on commissions. When PDVSA needed to evade sanctions, Compass Bank provided a safe passage. This happened at least since 2017 until, one day, the Chavista justice decided to focus on the De Grazia brothers and Samark López Bello.
Despite the prominence of Compass Bank & Trust Corp in this story and its mention in the PDVSA-Cripto case dossier, so far, at least publicly, the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office has not announced an investigation into the bank. Judging by its website, it continues to operate normally.
The same applies to Bancamiga, whose majority ownership is now in the hands of José Simón Elarba, a Venezuelan lawyer and businessman, as well as a government contractor, who since May has also become the president of the bank’s board, a new and seemingly good administration, as publicized by the institution itself.
Source: The Compass Bank set the course for evasion of sanctions (and collection of commissions)