“Good morning, could you please call me? This is Dr. Victor Manuel Navarro Cervantes, President of Pemex (Pemex – PMI Holdings Petrolem España SL). We need to transcribe a document.” [sic, identical to the original].
That was the WhatsApp message received at 1:18 PM on October 27, 2024, by Eliézer José Marín, a judicial transcriber originally from Nicaragua, currently residing in Murcia, Spain. He found it odd that the president of a major oil company would message him directly, rather than through an assistant or secretary. Nonetheless, Marín replied. Any potential client is a blessing for a migrant with five children working long hours.
After exchanging a couple of messages, they agreed to a video call. On the other end of the screen, Marín saw an older man in a flawless suit and tie, friendly yet somewhat boastful. However, the interlocutor explained that the person he was seeing was not Victor Navarro from the original message but his representative at a Pemex subsidiary (the state-owned oil company of Mexico) called PMI Holdings Petrolem Spain. His name was José Márquez, he said, omitting his characteristic middle name: Trinidad.
Since that recent October 27, and for the next two and a half months, Marín agreed to work for who he would soon discover was none other than José Trinidad Márquez, El Camaleón, the Venezuelan con artist, also known as The Man of a Thousand Faces or The Golden Intermediary.
Starting from his native Venezuela, Márquez has lived a life of escapades across several countries for almost three decades, sometimes finding himself at the mercy of the press and the law. His modus operandi has always been the same: he presents himself as an intermediary of a state-owned company to close major deals with suppliers such as oil companies, shipping lines, or banks, collecting hefty upfront commissions. His most impressive scam was revealed by Armando.info five years ago when it was discovered that he had been recruited by the president of Banco Espírito Santo (BES) in Portugal, Ricardo Salgado, to deceive his own board weeks before the bank’s bankruptcy.
José Trinidad Márquez has faced multiple arrests and been incarcerated in Venezuela and Spain for various crimes, but with little lasting consequence. Each time he left prison, he devised and executed new scams.
The last that was known about him was that, still in Spain in mid-2023, he began posing as a senior executive at Pemex, albeit unsuccessfully: according to third-party testimonies, he lacked the funds to pay his remaining collaborators and was limited to trying a few scams to afford meals at luxury restaurants or buy clothes.
But that apparent decline was just a temporary setback. Márquez is unstoppable. His message to Eliézer Marín in Murcia was just the prelude to a new scam, which last Wednesday was reported by the Madrid newspaper El País denounced. El Camaleón is active and back in action.
Between Ships and Tomographs, Let’s See Who Falls
Armando.info gained access to a massive file of documents related to El Camaleón’s most recent embezzlement attempts, allowing reconstruction in detail of how Márquez devised a scheme to fraudulently acquire tens of thousands of euros. In this new act of his cleverness, the Venezuelan left a trail of deception, including a debt of 4,375 euros with Eliézer Marín.
The Nicaraguan assisted Márquez for some time in preparing dozens of documents, ranging from emails for scheduling meetings to invitations to bidding processes or proposals for million-dollar contracts. Márquez would pass handwritten drafts of these documents to Marín, who polished and transcribed them. The Venezuelan was not comfortable with new forms of communication and required such secretarial help. At one point, he even mentioned the type of typewriter he still used. “Technology is not his thing; I think that’s where he’s failing,” Marín told Armando.info in an interview.
Marín’s suspicions about his boss increased with the tasks Márquez assigned him once they agreed that he would serve as an administrative assistant, not just as a transcriber. Following those orders, in emails sent to potential clients, Marín presented himself as a graduate of the Department of Evaluation of Bids and Projects at PMI Holdings Petrolem Spain. Yet the truth was that this department, processing multiple bids simultaneously, consisted only of him.
From the handwritten drafts he received, Marín drafted the terms for the bids that PMI Holdings offered in various sectors: shipping, transportation, engineering, and liquefied natural gas. But he also targeted areas that seemed outside the competencies and technical expertise of PMI Holdings: medical equipment for hospitals or real estate investments. According to Marín, the most significant bets were in shipping and medical equipment.
In just a couple of weeks, for instance, Marín sent out invitations on behalf of PMI Holdings Petrolem Spain to participate in the award processes of contracts to a dozen companies, some as large as Mitsubishi Corporation or Rolls Royce.
Among those efforts, the most promising deal was with the Spanish company Navantia and the South Korean Samsung Heavy Industries, the branch of the Korean chaebol dedicated to constructing commercial vessels in their shipyards. This time, a supposed contest for the construction of a fleet of tanker and liquefied natural gas transportation ships would serve as bait in Márquez’s ploy, El Camaleón.
Among the manuscripts that the Venezuelan provided to Marín for transcription and formatting on letterhead were dozens of pages with technical specifications regarding the length and width of the ships, the temperature of the cargo, and the ports and routes they would traverse. Márquez armed himself with the sector’s lexicon and assured Marín that he was a naval engineer by profession.
The Spanish company Navantia— which in 2005 received a contract to equip the Venezuelan Navy with patrol boats of the Guaicamacuto and Guaiquerí classes amid corruption allegations—quickly declined to bid for the contract, but Samsung remained in the running.
The South Korean conglomerate sent five questionnaires to PMI Holdings, likely intending to test their interlocutor. The answers fabricated by José Trinidad Márquez portrayed a petroleum executive not very strict in his directives. This is evident from the following message exchange: “Is the requirement of an LBP [‘Length Between Perpendiculars’] of 284.23 meters a mandatory condition? (Our standard 180K is 287.5 meters),” wrote Samsung. To this, PMI Holdings, or rather Márquez, responded, “The specification of 284.23 meters is not a mandatory condition. You may use the standard length of 287.5 meters as a reference.” Throughout the exchange, PMI Holdings would agree to modify other parameters so that Samsung would stay in the bid.
In another letter, as part of that effort to lure the corporation, the supposed PMI went all out in expressing its “sincere condolences” to the company regarding an air accident that occurred last December in South Korea, which claimed 176 lives.
The back-and-forth emails between PMI Holdings and Samsung Heavy Industries lasted until January 9 of this year. As the deal approached finalization, PMI Holdings informed Samsung that if they won the contract, they would need to pay 150,000 euros to a company called Inas Soria & Associates to officially register as the “contract awardee.” Marín claims he could never contact anyone from that company and suspects Inas Soria & Associates was actually funneling payments for Márquez. “For me, it was his way to make money,” he asserts.
Simultaneously with this scam, Márquez had initiated another “tender” for advanced medical equipment. Before Marín joined PMI Holdings in June 2024, he sent several invitation letters to various companies specializing in tomographs, MRI machines, and linear accelerators, among others. The purpose of the sham tender he was calling was to acquire 267 units to equip 26 health centers across Mexico. Companies invited to participate included Stryker Medical, Healthcare Systems de México, Tesa Medical, Roboticsol, Siemens Healthineers, and a consortium of firms including Human Corporis-Elekta from Mexico. These companies, especially Siemens, showed significant interest, even leading to a meeting with El Camaleón on October 24 in Madrid.
Among the documents obtained by Armando.info are two theses from engineering students at Mexican and Colombian universities on adapting bunker-type spaces to accommodate radiology equipment. There are also tenders for equipping hospitals with oncology equipment in Spain and Mexico. Marín maintains that the Venezuelan scammer studied these types of documents to use them as templates for his fictitious tenders.
Indeed, the tender specifications appeared to be quite technical. Some spanned 200 pages, featuring architectural plans, mathematical formulas, and Gantt diagrams. Yet, many mistakes slipped through in both writing and content. Companies likely noticed this.
Both Siemens Healthineers and Human Corporis-Elekta sent exhaustive lists of questions via email to clarify confusing aspects of the tender. These were detailed and repetitive questions indicating a possible intent to scrutinize. Siemens also questioned several technical specifications, suggesting alternatives or requesting acceptance of their own parameters instead of those proposed in the terms of reference. According to Marín, companies that questioned too much or reached out directly to Pemex stopped communicating with Márquez.
Marín also pointed out that it seemed strange to some invited companies that the 25,000 euros they were required to pay upfront, as a kind of pledge to register as suppliers for Pemex-PMI Holdings, had to be paid to a third party, the company Inas Soria & Associates, rather than directly to Pemex-PMI.
Armando.info tried to contact several executives from Siemens Healthineers and Human Corporis-Elekta for further information, but did not receive a response before this edition closed.
Accumulation of Suspicions
All the tender documents began with initials followed by a numeric code that, according to Marín, El Camaleón invented arbitrarily, as it was not the supposed “purchasing department” assigning them.
Marín, who was in Murcia, never met anyone else who worked at the purported PMI Holdings Spain. He found it unusual that no other officials participated in Zoom or Teams meetings, nor did he receive any calls from them. He only knew that they worked remotely, just like him. Márquez explained that he had a very small office in Madrid, making it uncomfortable to meet clients there; he preferred to do so in hotels or other venues, which also struck the Nicaraguan as suspicious.
According to Márquez’s script, the PMI Holdings team included, besides El Camaleón himself, Victor Navarro, who supposedly hired him; Luz María Zarza, Pemex’s legal head; engineer Luis Sanz; and Ina Solange Soria, who was supposed to receive payments from companies. All had email addresses ending with the suffix pmiholdingpetroleo.com. Navarro and Zarza were executives at Pemex but no longer work there, as confirmed by the Mexican oil company to Armando.info.
Moreover, it was noteworthy that any document or communication signed by Victor Navarro referred to a contact phone number corresponding to José Trinidad Márquez in Spain, not a number in Mexico.
A journalist from Armando.info sent a message to José Trinidad Márquez’s number inquiring about Victor Navarro. As of the closing of this story, there had been no response.
Marín confirmed the situation was shady when he asked Márquez for a copy of his identification document, as Siemens Energy had requested it along with the license plate number of the vehicle that would take him to the company’s headquarters in Madrid, a day before a scheduled meeting. “I’m not going to give my documentation to anyone; I’ll identify myself when I’m there,” he remembers his boss replied, annoyed. The next morning, Márquez called to cancel the meeting, claiming that Victor Navarro “had suffered a mild heart attack.” Marín asked which emergency service he had been taken to, as he wanted to visit him. The Camaleón told him it wasn’t necessary, that Navarro was resting, that he was not allowed visits, and never provided the name of the hospital.
By this point, Marín knew he was dealing with a professional liar. He had searched for José Márquez’s name online and found articles about prior scams by the Venezuelan published in Armando.info and other outlets like El País or La Vanguardia in Spain. He compared the few publicly available photos of El Camaleón with the images his superior had sent him on WhatsApp, portraying a sophisticated businessman. They were the same person.
With this evidence in hand, before the end of 2024, he made a video call to confront him. “Hi, Trinidad,” Marín greeted him. El Camaleón felt exposed but surprisingly responded with an unexpected calmness to Marín. Márquez did not even bother to deny anything. He told him everything that had been published by the media about his past was true, but that he had paid for his mistakes and was now working honorably with Pemex; that Victor Navarro was his friend who had given him a second chance, and that Marín had nothing to worry about, as he would soon be paid for all his work.
Marín had invested hours of effort working late into the night until three AM and had also submitted his contract with PMI to immigration. Distressed about having presented a contract with a fake company to Spanish authorities, he sought legal counsel and began preparing his exit: he needed to document everything, save copies of emails, documents, chats—everything that could prove he had been a victim of fraud, not an accomplice.
Campaign of Denunciation
On November 29, 2024, Marín sent an anonymous email to the Pemex addresses he found for Victor Navarro and Luz María Zarza, asking whether the medical equipment tender was legitimate or a fabrication by Márquez. The message to Zarza bounced back immediately. Apparently, by that date, she no longer worked at the Mexican oil company. Desperate for answers, Marín began systematically sending the same message to all the Pemex employee email addresses he found in an online directory. He claims there were over 60.
Within a few days, he received a notification email stating that his inquiry had been forwarded to Pemex’s Legal Compliance and Transparency department, followed by another indicating he needed to submit a request for information access to receive a response. Frustrated by the Mexican oil company’s bureaucracy, Marín replied, “I repeat and implore you; it is as simple as saying if that domain [for PMI Holdings Spain] belongs to your subsidiary.”
Finally, on December 19, he received an email signed by Alfonso H. Reyes from the legal department of PMI International, stating: “PMI-CIM, PMI Holdings Petrolem Spain, or any of the previously mentioned companies disassociate themselves entirely from said communications and from individuals impersonating the identity of personnel or advisors of these companies, engaging in behaviors that could constitute crimes.”
Armando.info sent Reyes a message requesting further details and to know what internal measures PMI International had taken in response to Marín’s denunciations. Reyes had not responded by the close of this edition.
On January 9, Pemex official Paola López contacted Marín. He sent her a copy of his employment contract, asking her to clarify if it was valid and confirm whether PMI Holdings Spain existed. Four days later, López sent him the following messages via WhatsApp:
“We have no representation in Spain,” the Mexican official told him. “Indeed, PMI Holdings is affiliated with Pemex, but its branches are in Singapore (…) So far, what I have been asked to recommend to you is that you do not meet with suppliers and to make you aware that someone is impersonating Victor Manuel Navarro.”
Marín called José Trinidad Márquez to confront him again. Although El Camaleón once more appeared unfazed, the Nicaraguan chose to adopt a more defiant stance this time. After they hung up, he messaged Márquez that he would reach out to the media and that “tomorrow you’re going to get a visit, on behalf of my family.” Marín asserts he was referring to the police, as he thought he would be arrested the next day after having reported him to the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police. He then called all clients and companies he was in contact with to warn them that they were about to be defrauded, advising them not to respond if Márquez tried to communicate. Thus, he put a check on the Venezuelan’s scheme: Marín claims that, thanks to his actions, no suppliers—except for a real estate company mentioned by journalist Fernando Peinado in El País—completed the required payment of 25,000 euros to be added to the “client list” of PMI Holdings Petrolem Spain.
Armando.info sought comments from Pemex’s communications department and attempted to reach Paola López, the official from the Mexican state oil company who spoke with Marín, but received no response.
A journalist from this outlet also called José Trinidad Márquez to hear his side. He answered the call but, when the journalist identified herself, he slipped away. “Could you call me back in five or ten minutes, please, if that’s okay?” he requested, claiming he was busy with a child. The master of evasion never answered again and subsequently blocked the journalist’s number.
