Former employees of Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), who were responsible for purchasing, participated in a corruption scheme where they received bribes in exchange for awarding contracts to the Zulia businessmen Roberto Rincón and Abraham Shiera
By: Grisha Susej Vera
Source: El Pitazo
The state-owned oil company is under intense scrutiny. Photo: Archive
Whiskey, luxury watches, airline tickets, trips, mortgage payments, and thousands of dollars were the bribes that former Pdvsa employees received for manipulating bids and favoring businessmen Roberto Rincón and Abraham Shiera with contracts exceeding $1 billion from the state oil company. These payments were disguised as commissions.
As a result, one woman and two Venezuelan men residing in Texas, United States, received sentences. Karina Nuñez, a former Pdvsa purchasing official, was sentenced to 36 months in prison on May 28, 2019. She admitted to accepting a multimillion-dollar house in Florida, expensive watches, and a trip to Paris.
José Ramos, Pdvsa’s purchasing superintendent, pleaded guilty in 2015 for benefiting from contract awards. On September 6, 2019, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, as stated in his file.
Furthermore, Christian Maldonado, a former Pdvsa employee also involved in purchases, and who cooperated in the investigation, pleaded guilty in December 2015 and paid a bond of $165,000. On May 28, 2019, he was sentenced to two years of probation.
In December 2015, as Maldonado and Ramos were pleading guilty, U.S. authorities detained Rincón and Shiera for allegedly committing fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering in U.S. territory.
The account
In 1988, Rincón registered the company Tradequip in Maracaibo to provide services to the oil industry. At that time, he was still using public transport. It was in 2003, after the oil strike, that Rincón became a trusted supplier to the government. Additionally, he is also listed as the owner of Ovarb, and family members are found in records of 36 companies, according to a report published in Armando.Info by the director of El Pitazo, César Batiz.
Between 2009 and 2012, Rincón and his partner, Abraham Shiera, who is also a shareholder in the company Vertix Instrumentos, paid bribes disguised as commissions to Maldonado, reveals the U.S. Department of Justice.
In 2016, six months after their arrest, both businessmen pleaded guilty but have yet to be sentenced.
Moisés Millán, an employee of Shiera, has also been charged and pleaded guilty on January 19, 2016, according to the sentencing. 32 months later, on September 6, 2019, he was sentenced to three years of probation.
The other accused
In the embezzlement of the Venezuelan oil industry, former officials who held high-ranking positions in Venezuelan state entities have been charged and detained: Nervis Villalobos, former Deputy Minister of Electric Power; Luis Carlos de León, former Director of Finance of Electricidad de Caracas; César David Rincón, former Director of Bariven; and Rafael Reiter, former Manager of Protection Control and Loss at Pdvsa.
In October 2017, they were arrested in Spain and were sought by the Houston prosecutor’s office in the United States. De León and Rincón were extradited to the North American country in 2018. Villalobos and Reiter, on the other hand, remain in Spain on probation.
All of them are trusted individuals of Rafael Ramírez, former president of Pdvsa, who, according to reports by Joshua Goodman, AP chief in the Andean Region, is linked to the investigation into bribery involving Rincón and Shiera. However, Ramírez denied in an interview with El Pitazo that he is involved in the case or being investigated by U.S. authorities.
Etiquetas: Abraham Shiera, Departamento de Justicia, Karina Nuñez, Nervis Villalobos, pdvsa, Rafael Ramirez, Rafael Reiter, Roberto Rincón