The plot of Venezuelan oil sold in international markets over the past three years, resulting in the loss of tens of billions of dollars from Pdvsa’s assets, remains active in Switzerland with connections to Dubai.
Jaime Garvett | Primer Informe
A Swiss bank and the leads of an international financier hidden in Dubai are two active pieces in the complex web of corruption surrounding Pdvsa. This scheme was managed by various operators, including Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido and several associates, such as Colonel Antonio Pérez Suárez, investors Siri Evjemo-Nysveen and Alejandro Bazzoni, and Mexican operator José Luis Chávez Calva. All are linked to a network previously controlled by Álex Saab and supported by Nicolás Maduro’s former strongman, Tareck El Aissami.
The bank in question, MBaer Merchant Bank, played a key role in managing funds according to investigations by the prosecutor’s office in Venezuela. Although it was not the only institution involved, it turned a blind eye to operations that bordered on the corruption scheme known as Pdvsa-Crypto, where Pdvsa secretly sold millions of barrels of Venezuelan crude oil through commission payments and the use of cryptocurrencies, depleting the monetary reserves of the Venezuelan state oil company by around $23 billion or more.
Siri Evjemo-Nysveen was appointed Vice Chair of the Board of MBaer Merchant Bank in September 2020 after acquiring a significant stock package in the bank. MBaer Merchant Bank is a Swiss bank that offers private banking and wealth management services to international clients. According to some reports, the bank may have been utilized by Álvaro Pulido and Álex Saab, involved in the Pdvsa corruption scheme, for money laundering activities.
Despite her appointment at MBaer Merchant Bank, no records of Evjemo-Nysveen’s prior roles in the institution were found before the capital increase. Her LinkedIn profile indicates she held an analyst position and other roles in stock sales, but not at the board level. In 2021, Siri was re-elected as a board member of MBaer Merchant Bank AG. However, in May 2023, she chose not to run for re-election and stepped down from her position as vice president of the bank. According to a spokesperson for MBaer, Siri made this decision to focus on her activities in asset management.
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Evjemo-Nysveen is married to Alessandro Bazzoni, an Italian businessman sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in January 2021 for his alleged involvement in a network transporting Venezuelan oil to evade U.S. sanctions. In relation to sanctions against Bazzoni, the Treasury Department blacklisted six oil tankers and 14 companies, all affiliated with Bazzoni and his partners.
Siri Evjemo-Nysveen
The sanctions did not stop the flow of oil from the terminals of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (Pdvsa), and Bazzoni’s role in the scheme became more prominent in the second half of 2020 until the end of 2022, taking shipments through his companies and distributing the products to new interested parties.
The Greek shipowner, George Moundreas, a partner of Bazzoni who would have been part of the corruption network at Pdvsa, is under investigation for his close relationship with Colonel José Antonio Pérez Suárez, former Vice President of Trading and Supply at Pdvsa, who was detained in an anti-corruption raid in Venezuela and with whom he reportedly made millions in illicit Venezuelan oil operations.
According to some investigations, Siri Evjemo-Nysveen and Mexican José Luis Chávez Calva were responsible for managing all cash flows derived from the sale of the stolen product. They used various platforms and financial structures in Dubai, the UK, and Switzerland, including MBaer Merchant Bank, where Evjemo-Nysveen was board vice president until she was ousted due to the Pdvsa scandal.
José Luis Chávez Calva—who now dyes his hair yellow to avoid being recognized, according to people in his circle—hides in Dubai to continue managing the embezzled wealth of Venezuelan coffers belonging to international operators Alessandro Bazzoni, Siri Evjemo-Nysveen, Joaquín Leal Jiménez, and Álex Saab.
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