As investigations into the PDVSA corruption network unfold, more details are emerging about unpaid invoices that faced no collection efforts from Colonel Pérez Suárez, the Vice President of International Trade and Supply at PDVSA, who is currently detained.
Alessandro Bazzoni, Joaquín Leal Jiménez, Erik Roveta, and José Luis Chávez Calva formed a team and crafted a scheme to engage in criminal acts, steal, and defraud PDVSA.
Bazzoni leveraged his connections and partnership with Greek shipowners George Moundreas and Panagis Zissimatos to supply the necessary vessels. Leal utilized his ties with Alex Saab and later with Álvaro Pulido to secure oil quotas from PDVSA. Erik Roveta managed the entire operation and sale of Venezuelan crude oil, while Chávez Calva coordinated all financial transactions and cash flows together with Siri Evjemo-Nysveen, Bazzoni’s wife and Vice President of the Board at MBaer Merchant Bank, one of the main banking platforms used for laundering these funds.
The scheme began with the company Libre Abordo owned by Mexican Joaquín Leal Jiménez. After successfully declaring the company bankrupt and leaving $422 million in unpaid debts to PDVSA, they realized how easy it was to engage in fraudulent activities using shell companies. They continued to employ an expanded group of shell companies to collectively leave a debt with PDVSA exceeding $1.5 billion. Many of the shell companies registered by Bazzoni and Leal used names similar to multinational corporations to conceal their true purpose, such as the case of United Petroleo Corp in Panama. This company was created to imitate the real United Petroleum & Chemicals Co. LTD, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Sinopec Corp. The strategy was to create a façade, making it seem as though the real United was being allocated credit oil when, in fact, it was themselves. The Panamanian United controlled by Bazzoni has $400 million in unpaid invoices to PDVSA, according to reports from the Associated Press.
As the testimonies of those detained in the corruption scheme progress, sources close to the case confirmed that during 2021 and 2022, this group of criminals led by Alessandro Bazzoni managed to lure inexperienced clients in the oil sector who needed to settle their products and services, defrauding them and escalating the unpaid invoice tally at PDVSA to over $8 billion.
Alessandro Bazzoni, Joaquín Leal Jiménez, and José Luis Chávez face charges from the prosecution for the crime of illicit trafficking of strategic materials as defined by Article 34 of the Organic Law Against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism.
