New developments in the investigation into corruption networks at Pdvsa have expanded the scope of international connections, bringing new players into the exclusive group of Greek shipowners benefiting from illegal Venezuelan crude transactions.
A key figure recently identified in the investigations is a Greek shipowner, one of the tanker brokers who formed a close alliance with Colonel José Antonio Pérez Suárez, Vice President of Commerce and Supply at Pdvsa, who is currently at the center of an extensive corruption network linked to former Oil Minister and high-ranking chavista figure, Tareck El Aissami.
Colonel Pérez Suárez, now under indefinite detention, developed a fraudulent scheme with a group of shipowners and operators based in Greece and Italy to secure multimillion-dollar profits.
According to sources familiar with the investigations, the military official demanded cash payments of millions for each ship loaded with crude and petroleum products that left Pdvsa’s terminals. However, these amounts never made it into the coffers of the Venezuelan corporation.
Alliance for Embezzlement
The operator, well-known in Pdvsa circles, had been active for years in the business of transporting Venezuelan crude to international markets. He was a direct competitor of Alessandro Bazzoni, another broker who also engaged in irregular dealings with Colonel Pérez Suárez and other high-level officials at the Venezuelan state oil company.
But in 2021 and 2022, he fortuitously allied with Bazzoni to establish a cartel managed by Italian broker Erik Roveta, through which freight prices were inflated and extraordinary delays were engineered to increase profits.
A delay of a VLCC (with a capacity exceeding 250,000 tons of crude) cost up to $150,000 per day, and delays could extend up to 40 days. After this period, the debt incurred due to the delay, which was to be covered by Pdvsa, plus the shipping cost, which could reach approximately $20 million, was “settled” with the crude already loaded on the tanker.
The crude was then sold in international markets. The profits from the sale were divided among the operators and their protectors—El Aissami, Cabello, Rodríguez—creating a fraudulent scheme that siphoned off tens of millions of barrels of crude from Pdvsa between 2021 and 2022.
This operation was repeated numerous times, generating “sales” of crude in Pdvsa’s accounting records that, in reality, did not yield the respective income. In two years of fraudulent operations, the debt from these false sales increased the accounting debt to $21 billion.
Additionally, the shipowner established a strategic partnership with Colonel Pérez Suárez to rent his vessels directly to Pdvsa to facilitate swift and discreet loading of crude.
The investigation has determined that Pérez-Suárez, in alliance with the shipowners, loaded numerous tankers under this scheme, whereby the crude cargo disappeared without leaving any accounting trace.
Tankers Under Suspicion
In breaking news, Primer Informe has confirmed that the MT Oreo vessel remains seized by Pdvsa by court order, and has not been claimed by its owners, operators George Moundreas and Alessandro Bazzoni.
So far, neither Moundreas nor Bazzoni have contacted Venezuelan authorities to claim the ship or offer explanations about the whereabouts of the cargo aboard the tanker MT Nikel, which they used under false names (including FortOne) to fraudulently transport crude from Venezuela.
As is known, when the regime’s Anticorruption Police operation started months ago, the FortOne (in reality MT Nikel) set sail in a “hasty” manner despite lacking authorization, with Venezuelan maritime agents onboard. Once in international waters, the captain dropped the agents in a drift raft, until they were rescued by the Venezuelan Coast Guard.
Moundreas and Bazzoni, who manage a joint fortune of $2 billion, are also linked to a series of allegedly fraudulent transactions involving Álex Saab and his partner Álvaro Pulido, the Kalil brothers, Alejandro Arroyo, and Miguel Silva.
Bazzoni is connected with Mexican operator Joaquín Leal Jiménez and several joint accounts in Dubai managed by financier José Luis Chávez Calva. Both Bazzoni and Leal Jiménez are under sanctions from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is also investigating recent corruption cases at Pdvsa.
