The man, characterized by his beard, light eyes, and defined muscles, frequently inspects the remodeling and expansion work at the High-Performance Sports Center (CDAR) Los Samanes, previously known as FutSal Park Los Samanes. This facility serves as the training base for the Universidad Central de Venezuela Football Club (UCV FC), located in the Baruta municipality in southeastern Caracas.
His visits, which are announced by a caravan of escort vehicles, are more than just oversight. During his tours, he praises the workers on site, brings them food, and if anything is lacking, like a bag of cement or a tool, he commands them to find it “in the command.”
Often, he takes advantage of the space to do calisthenics, with some friends and escorts joining in the exercises.
Colonel Granko Arteaga has been identified in independent reports from international organizations as one of the heads of torture in Venezuela. Credit: IG @grankoarteaga.
This friendly and diligent man on the field, however, instills fear in the dungeons. He is Colonel Alexander Enrique Granko Arteaga of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), head of the Special Affairs Directorate (DAE) of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim), identified by the UN Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding Commission and by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) as the mastermind behind extrajudicial executions, deaths due to torture, and other torment.
As previously revealed in other stories in this series, despite being an active officer of the Armed Forces and therefore a public official, Granko has been building a businessempire which he formally delegates to trusted individuals like his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law, yet he effectively controls. Recently, this growing empire has expanded into sports ventures, with Los Samanes complex being part of it, as confirmed by Armando.info through testimonies from six sources and multiple document reviews.
With a Family Atmosphere
Although he is frequently seen at the sports complex, Granko Arteaga is not the signatory of the commercial documents for FutSal Park; that role belongs to a 34-year-old named Juan Manuel Useche Oropeza.
Sources describe the relationship between Useche Oropeza and Granko Arteaga as very close, although they cannot ascertain if this proximity is due to some family ties.
Useche Oropeza was the one who, at least until July 2024, according to three out of six consulted sources (whose identities are omitted for security reasons), oversaw the expansion works at the sports complex and met with community council representatives in the area.
This pertains to the Guaicay sector, adjacent to Los Samanes, both affluent areas of the Baruta municipality, whose mayor, Darwin González, as will be seen later, is also a key player in this story.
A document obtained by Armando.info shows Useche Oropeza’s name and signature as a representative of FutSal Park. The document is a memorandum dated February 20, 2024, outlining the agreements reached after a meeting the previous day with the Guaicay community council regarding the expansion work at the sports complex. Among the agreements, the neighborhood organization committed not to impede the expansion work by the contracted company, ZQP Engineers, Zambrano, Quintero, and Pérez.
In the same document issued after the meeting with the Guaicay community council, another signatory appears, Aldrey José Rodríguez Oropeza, also 34 years old, as a representative of FutSal Park.
The Espartano Team, belonging to Granko, is prominent in several ways at CDAR Los Samanes. Credit: Courtesy.
Useche Oropeza and Rodríguez Oropeza, who are also cousins, were partners in a business that traces its origins to the city of Barquisimeto, the capital of the western state of Lara. This business is Transerauto, C.A., a company established in 2013 and registered in Venezuela’s National Contractors Registry (RNC) since 2017.
Aldrey Rodríguez is described as the resident engineer on the site. “The link is that they are family: he is Juan [Useche]’s cousin. Useche, for us, represented the owners,” says one source. However, at the site, it was unclear who the actual owners were.
Until Granko started frequenting the site.
The first concession for FutSal Park was granted by former mayor Gerardo Blyde. Credit: Facebook RS FutSal Park.
Tricks on the Field
Aside from the subterfuge of omitting his name from the commercial records, lately, Granko Arteaga has not made significant efforts to conceal his recent ventures, such as the professional football franchise UCV F.C., named after the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the oldest and most important university in the country.
Alexander, Granko’s teenage son, has appeared in the lineup since the 2024 season, a premature debut that the pro-government press highlighted, but without linking it to the Dgcim officer. News of this spread across the continent earlier this year when UCV F.C. faced the Brazilian Corinthians in a playoff of the Copa Libertadores’ second phase. Many took note that the Venezuelan team sported the logo of Team Espartanos, a sports promotion multiplatform created in 2021 by Granko Arteaga. Though, in reality, the insignia—a helenic-style helmet on a field divided into black and yellow—has been used by the military since before as a distinctive for his Special Affairs Directorate, whose members wear it on uniforms, vehicles, and premises. The logo also appeared as a closure to many ominous videos circulating on social media after the electoral fraud on July 28, 2024, with which the government sought to dissuade anyone intending to protest.
Since February 2024, the team, home at the Olympic Stadium of the Ciudad Universitaria in Caracas, displays the brand on their jersey. “It’s like a team wearing a swastika,” said one consulted source.
The High-Performance Sports Center Los Samanes serves as training ground for UCV F.C. and as the base for what’s known as the Cantera UCV F.C., its youth category.
Juan Manuel Useche Oropeza, linked to the fields of Los Samanes, serves as a board member of UCV F.C. and leader of what is identified as “a group of entrepreneurs” aiming to revive the tarnished glories of a franchise that shone in the 50s and 60s while stripping the university of its name. The team joined the first division of Venezuelan professional football, Liga Futve, in 2020.
High Pressure in Baruta
Starting February 2024, while making his presence known at the UCV F.C. team, Useche Oropeza was also seen leading at the Los Samanes complex. Meanwhile, Granko Arteaga, still without the current notoriety, exerted his influence to expedite the center’s construction, primarily on the Baruta Mayor’s office led by Darwin González (a member of the Fuerza Vecinal party) and the Municipal Council, currently chaired by Armando Machado, along with the Urban Control Commission, Solid Waste, and Environment of the Baruta Municipal Council, led by José Gregorio González.
The CDAR Los Samanes had, from its foundation in 2016 until 2023, only one court. It now boasts three courts, administrative offices, a laundry, a meeting room, a physiotherapy module, cold and hot water pools, and cafeterias.
Another piece of evidence showing the project’s aim to become a full-fledged sports complex is that a villa on the nearby Las Colinas Avenue of Los Samanes, expropriated in 2014 by the Nicolás Maduro government, now serves as a residence for UCV F.C. academy players coming from the interior of the country. The property belonged to Rafael Ernesto Reiter Muñoz, former Corporate Manager of Prevention and Loss Control of the state oil company Pdvsa and, by far, the right-hand man of the former president of the company, Rafael Ramírez.
There were some initial objections from the municipal government to the club’s expansion. “At one point, they said they wanted to buy the land: not only the sport area but also two additional municipal lots [the ones in Guaicay]. And they managed [referring to Granko and his team] to get the entire Municipal Council to approve the alienation. They purchased the educational and the sports land. They haven’t been able to purchase the green area. It’s supposed that they will request to take care of the green area or what’s left, because it’s already been intervened. But they didn’t ask permission from the environment or engineering,” said a source.
The Municipal Council, previously presided over by Luis Aguilar, and now by Armando Machado, faced pressure from Granko Arteaga. “This is how things started to be done. There were attempts to halt construction, but when the stop sticker was put up, [Granko] would call and it had to be removed. He would directly call the mayor. He was the one who expedited everything. He would also call [Luis] Aguilar,” a source states.
According to residents consulted, it was Luis Aguilar who first raised the intent to expand FutSal Park in November 2023, using a ploy: he promised neighbors that the engaged company would repair two torrents that undermined the land and threatened surrounding areas.
From February 2024, with Armando Machado now serving as president of the Municipal Council replacing Aguilar, the work advanced until September. By then, the Local Public Planning Council (CLPP) had yet to be notified, a process that under regular and legal circumstances would have been completed even before. Instead, the opposite occurred.
After, in February 2024, the Guaicay community council agreed to allow the project to proceed, provided that it was presented to the community, FutSal Park, represented by Useche Oropeza, Rodríguez Oropeza, and a third party, Luis Quintero (a shareholder from the first era of the complex), never answered follow-up communications from the community. It was not until September 19, 2024, during a session before the CLPP, that Mayor Darwin González read, for the first time, the general characteristics of the project, albeit without providing details or plans.
“However, work was already underway. They were clearing the land. Between FutSal and the Guaicay park, there is a height difference of about 80 meters. We saw they started clearing the lower part [that which corresponds to the boundaries between the park and the complex], which is natural terrain, and what was above, which was pure fill, was coming down. They never touched the torrent at the Guaicay park for repair, and this is evident in one of the pathways that is already eroding,” a consulted source added.
In summary, this is a project inherently flawed due to the absence of an approval act from the CLPP. There was also no second session, after the one in September 2024, involving Mayor González where the project was read and approved. Additionally, the land on which the expansion is being constructed has not been de-classified, a term in bureaucratic jargon referring to public-use space that remains in private hands through legal procedures.
Improvisation and whims permeated the orders Granko issued. “The new grass field was initially going to accommodate 1,200 people; then, 3,000; and finally, 5,000. We told them that not all those people fit into that space, but the goal was for that to be the home of UCV-F.C.” and not merely a training field, notes one source.
Tricks from Gorrín
The story of FutSal Park in Baruta dates back to 2014 when the municipality, through then-mayor Gerardo Blyde, granted the land on which the complex stands today in a concession.
On behalf of the company, the signing shareholder of the concession was Diego Javier Fernández Zapelli, also a partner of A.C. Atlético Venezuela Football Club, liquidated in 2022. The other partner was Luis Quintero, who remained as director after the sale to Granko’s associates. As of 2024, Quintero’s name still appeared in FutSal Park documents.
Granko Arteaga has not been the only prominent visitor at CDAR Los Samanes. During the initial peak of FutSal Park, Raúl Gorrín Belisario, president of Globovisión and owner of Seguros La Vitalicia, among other companies of the Gorrín Group, frequented the site, facing sanctions from Washington and charges in U.S. courts.
The center’s field, then the only one, was the venue to which Gorrín invited children from economically vulnerable communities to participate in sporting events as a part of a public relations strategy. “Futsal had Gorrín, Globovisión, and La Vitalicia advertisements,” recalls a former worker at the sporting field. Through photographs, which are not being published for source protection, the advertising display from Gorrín’s companies at the field has been confirmed. In fact, he himself, on his personal Instagram account and via Globovisión, promoted these social activities.
While this report could not verify that Gorrín was a direct shareholder of the facility, his connection was embodied in the presence of Maribel Josefina Pombo Sáez, cousin of Gustavo Duque Sáez, mayor of Chacao and a member of Fuerza Vecinal, the same party as Darwin González. One source also claims that Gustavo Duque’s sisters, actress María Antonieta Duque Sáez, and her twin, Mariana Duque Sáez, were regulars at FutSal Park.
Maribel Pombo was the wife of Diego Fernández Zapelli, the center’s founding shareholder. Additionally, as presented on her LinkedIn account, Pombo is the Marketing and Sales Manager at Globovisión, Gorrín’s channel. Furthermore, from 2019 until 2023, Diego Fernández and Maribel Pombo were partners in a legal entity, FutSal Park LLC, based in Doral, a city with a significant Venezuelan population west of Miami-Dade County in Florida.
One person interviewed for this report, close to the transaction, noted that Maribel Pombo negotiated the sale of the complex with the new owners through a third party, Gustavo Perdomo, president of Globovisión and a partner of Raúl Gorrín.
For this report, Armando.info sent questionnaires to Juan Manuel Useche Oropeza, Aldrey Rodríguez Oropeza, Darwin González, José Gregorio González, and Luis Enrique Quintero Sanoja. As of the edition’s closing date, none had responded.
Today, after opaque transactions backed by Granko, the business belongs to other owners. Yet, consulted sources emphasize that since August 2024, neither Aldrey Rodríguez nor Juan Manuel Useche has inspected the works at CDAR Los Samanes again. In contrast, Yhuryseck Escalante, the colonel’s wife, has been seen monitoring the progress of the work, just as she did with the adaptation of the expropriated neighboring villa to house young football talents.
Additionally, the situation remains largely unchanged. Residents continue to lack insight into the project’s scope; the Baruta mayor has yet to present the comprehensive plan; the Municipal Council continues to offer little to no resistance or willingness to oversee. And Colonel Granko Arteaga, the chief torturer of the Republic, keeps expanding his business network.
Granko also employs Team Espartanos’ networks to promote himself as a personable individual. Credit: IG @teamespartanosvzla
