Days have passed since the announcement of the sale of El Universal, one of the oldest and most-read newspapers in Venezuela, making it necessary to review the situation. Many details remain unknown, such as the true ownership, but here’s what we do know:
– Jesús Abreu Anselmi, a man with a dubious track record who recently served as director of FM Center and is reported as a fugitive from justice in the same newspaper he now directs (due to the financial downfall of Banco Latino), has been identified as the new director of El Universal. There is uncertainty about who appointed him to this position.
– Rafael Sarría, the majority shareholder of FM Center, childhood friend, and advisor to Diosdado Cabello, has distanced himself from the purchase of El Universal.
– According to Abreu Anselmi, a ghost company from Spain, Epalisticia SL, is the new owner of El Universal.
– Epalisticia has a capital of €3,500 and began operations less than a year ago.
– The only partner of Epalisticia is Tecnobreaks Inc., a company registered in Panama, whose president, Venezuelan Carlos Odín Velazco Cuello, admitted that this company has never operated and lacks the funds to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase of El Universal.
– Despite statements from Jose Luis Basanta Otero claiming that “Tecnobreacks Inc are the shareholders, it is the pool of investors,” the president of Tecnobreaks (Carlos Odín Velazco Cuello) and the treasurer (Carlos Velazco Mora) have reported the usurpation of their company in the alleged acquisition of El Universal by Epalisticia:
Carlos Velazco Mora and his son Carlos Odín Velazco Cuello are still in “shock” upon learning that, in this scenario, they could be considered the owners of the newspaper founded by poet Andrés Mata, coincidentally from the same state of Sucre.
At this point, they confidently assert that the use of their company Tecnobreaks (a mistaken attempt to translate the name to English) was through usurpation. There are no authorizations or legal powers granted to third parties to operate on behalf of the company.
For now, the father has announced that he will approach the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office to report the facts and request an investigation, as he fears that the anomaly could harm him and his family.
Meanwhile, in Panama, his son was trying since Thursday night to locate the lawyer who processed the registration and had not found him by noon yesterday, according to Velazco Mora.
The revelation from the Velasco family strongly indicates that there is something opaque behind the acquisition of the Venezuelan medium, which would be the only explanation for the fraudulent use of a foreign company owned by a small merchant who “could never accumulate the capital required for that transaction even if he worked for 100 years and lived three times.”
Jose Luis Basanta Otero, one of the representatives of Epalisticia, told Bloomberg that the purchase price was 22 million dollars, adding that his associates have an additional 1 billion dollars to invest in Venezuela, where they are betting on a regime change.
– There is no evidence anywhere confirming the argument published on Epalisticia’s website about having commitments and capital investments of 1 billion dollars.
– The domains of Epalisticia (Epalisticia.com and Epalisticia.es) were registered by a company in Miami on March 10, 2014.
– The representatives of Epalisticia in Spain are Eduardo Lopez de la Osa, Jose Antonio de la Torre, and Jose Luis Basanta Otero. De la Osa is an executive at Neurored, de la Torre was the director of Torreangulo Artes Gráficas (which has been insolvent since May 2013), while Basanta Otero is involved in another company (Gallaecia Invergest) whose accounts were frozen by the Ministry of Finance for non-payment in 2010.
– Epalisticia shares its address in Madrid with Valestorian SL, also linked to Venezuelan fugitive Pablo Botella Carretero. Botella Carretero held managerial positions at banks belonging to Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, for which Venezuela requested his arrest and extradition from Spain.
– Últimas Noticias, Venezuela’s best-selling newspaper owned by the Cadena Capriles, was acquired in October 2013 by another ghost group, this time English, which reportedly promised Abreu Anselmi to provide paper for El Universal to continue its operations.
– Decree 2095 of 1992, in its Article 26, reserves to “national companies,” that is, Venezuelan ones, “Television and broadcasting; newspapers in Spanish.”
– Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, stated this February: “It should be prohibited for people who do not live in Venezuela to own media outlets. I think it’s a good idea; it should be studied. Media must be in the hands of people who live in Venezuela.”
– The first sole partner of Epalisticia was Mediterranean Search SL, which appears as a partner in Banesco Holding Latinoamérica, of Juan Carlos Escotet. Mediterranean Search is one of hundreds of shell companies controlled by the Cuatrecasas law firm.