Potential witnesses are providing information to federal agencies about operators linked to the Pdvsa-Crypto scheme, including Chavista military personnel and Greek and Italian brokers who assisted the Venezuelan oil company in evading U.S. sanctions through a complex network of corruption and money laundering.
Casto Ocando | @cocando | Primer Informe
At least half a dozen former executives and employees of Pdvsa who had intimate knowledge of the corruption scheme involving the diversion of payment for oil shipments through cryptocurrencies and through an artificial delay scheme have left Venezuela and are in talks with federal investigation agencies, according to Primer Informe.
The executives and employees worked for the Vice Presidency of Commerce and Supply of Pdvsa in various positions since before 2019, when they began arriving in the United States.
The former officials are in discussions or plan to contact federal investigation agencies in Miami, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and others that have investigated corruption cases within the Venezuelan state oil company.
According to one of the representatives of these individuals, and a lawyer who is examining the evidence, who spoke with Primer Informe on the condition of anonymity until cooperation terms are defined, relevant information will be provided to authorities regarding the efforts of the Vice Presidency of Commerce and Supply of Pdvsa to evade U.S. sanctions against Venezuelan oil and to operate an international network of corruption and money laundering, utilizing cash and cryptocurrencies.
One of the officials, indicated the lawyer, possesses confidential information regarding the corruption scheme known as Pdvsa-Crypto, which included a double strand of crimes.
On one side, the payment of illegal commissions through a strategy of delaying shipments of crude oil for weeks, raising freight costs to the same level as crude costs, effectively delivering the oil almost for free.
The scheme, initiated under the orders of the Vice President of Commerce and Supply, Colonel Antonio José Pérez Suárez, generated multimillion-dollar losses for Pdvsa and extraordinary profits that lined the pockets of high-ranking officials of the state oil company, including Colonel Pérez Suárez himself, and foreign operators chartering the tankers.
On the other hand, there was the payment scheme for fuel dispatched through vessels chartered by Greek and Italian brokers, using cryptocurrencies that never entered Pdvsa’s payment system but were funneled through the National Superintendence of Crypto Assets (Sunacrip), and then distributed to private funds, generating combined losses exceeding $21 billion over an estimated period of 4 to 5 years.
READ MORE: From London to Dubai, Zurich to Mexico City and Caracas: the network that moved millions from Pdvsa’s corruption
Federal authorities are particularly interested in the roles of operators Álvaro Pulido, of Colombian origin, Alessandro Bazzoni, of Italian nationality, and Joaquín Leal Jiménez, a Mexican citizen, whom the Treasury Department considers the “heirs” of Colombian operator Álex Saab, currently detained in the United States and labeled by Washington as the frontman for dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Álvaro Pulido, a partner of Álex Saab and currently detained in Venezuela for his involvement in the Pdvsa-Crypto scandal, is under scrutiny along with Bazzoni for allegedly operating a money-laundering structure to send illegal funds to Colonel Pérez Suárez and other private accounts.
Meanwhile, Leal Jiménez is accused of establishing a conglomerate of companies in various tax havens to divert funds from corruption in Pdvsa and pay alleged bribes to Venezuelan oil company officials.
Pulido was transferring resources for bribe payments through the firms Ocean Blue Corporation S.A. and Inversiones Josyfe Corporation Inc., both registered in Panama and controlled by Venezuelan businessman José Youssef Boutros, according to corporate records.
According to a source familiar with operations, the companies received funds in euros or cryptocurrencies, which were then converted to cash dollars for payments to Colonel Pérez Suárez.
Bazzoni, for his part, used the firm Baer Capital Partners, a subsidiary of MBaer Merchant Bank in Dubai, to mobilize capital from Asia to Switzerland, resulting from the illicit sale of Venezuelan crude oil. According to this report, Bazzoni and his wife Siri Evjemo Nysveem used the company Norge Oil Limited, established in the British tax haven of the Isle of Man, to direct their investments, including those made in the Swiss bank.
In 2020, Evjemo Nysveem was appointed a board member of MBaer Merchant Bank, shortly after the bank formalized a capital increase of 6.83 million Swiss francs (about $7.6 million).
Interestingly, Evjemo Nysveem was removed from the bank’s board in March 2023, just weeks after the corruption scandal in Pdvsa tied to Tarek El Aissami erupted, and evidence of Bazzoni’s involvement in the fraudulent scheme against the Venezuelan state began to circulate.
The number of individuals with knowledge of or linked to the Pdvsa-Crypto plot and other recent corruption scandals in Venezuela (such as the CVG case and Cartones de Venezuela), who came before the scandal or fled to North American territory, is not accurately known.
According to the regime’s prosecutor in Venezuela, of the 81 arrest warrants related to these scandals, a total of 61 people have only been apprehended to date. About twenty accused individuals are still fugitives, reported regime prosecutor Tarek William Saab.
Although the individuals that Primer Informe is aware of are in the process of cooperating with authorities and are not on the fugitive list, it is not ruled out that some of those who evaded Venezuela may be in North American territory.
Among the operators considered fugitives by Maduro’s regime prosecutor are international operators Alessandro Bazzoni, Joaquín Leal Jiménez, Juan Carlos Chávez Calva, Rodrigo Guerena Bobadilla, and Jorge Germán Bonelli, all of whom have international arrest warrants issued.
Saab stated that a total of 43 individuals, including officials and businessmen, have been arrested to date. According to investigations, these individuals were involved in the irregular assignment of oil shipments to Sunacrip and private entities, evading administrative controls and violating established contracting regulations.
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