Estadao de Brasil reported yesterday that the Swiss Prosecutor’s Office will send the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) banking information related to the payment of $160 million in bribes to five PDVSA officials. The report continues by stating that the identities of the PDVSA executives involved have been kept confidential, and that a Swiss Federal Court ruled against the attempts by Roberto Rincon and Abraham Shiera to prevent Switzerland from sharing financial information with the Department of Justice.
There are two very interesting aspects:
The ruling establishes that the Department of Justice requested Switzerland, on December 10, 2014, to provide bank records in the context of a money laundering investigation, bribery of foreign officials, and other crimes related to the purchase of turbine equipment in Venezuela due to the electrical crisis at the end of 2009. An emergency decree issued by Hugo Chávez eliminated the standard procedures for bidding, tendering, and contracting for Venezuelan state-owned companies.
The documents and financial data from January 1, 2009, are of interest to this U.S. criminal investigation. Therefore, sharing such evidence is not objectionable in terms of timing; that is, no statute of limitations applies. Consequently, the Swiss bank accounts are clearly related to the foreign criminal investigation.
Hugo Chávez’s emergency decree solely benefited three companies:
OVARB, associated with Roberto Rincon and Abraham Shiera;
KCT, linked to Blas Herrera;
Derwick Associates, connected with Alejandro Betancourt, Francisco Convit, Pedro Trebbau, et al.
This site first exposed in June 2017 how these contracts were awarded: direct contracting.
https://t.co/gfFrCyyiHm
— alek boyd (@alekboyd) June 17, 2017
A separate investigation by the Department of Justice found that Fidel Ramírez, brother of PDVSA’s CEO, Rafael Ramírez, received bribes from KCT.
Another Justice Department investigation ended up charging Roberto Rincon and Abraham Shiera, who pleaded guilty to bribery and money laundering charges.
As the chief facilitator at @PDVSA, the brothers, cousins, personal assistants, closest colleagues, most loyal lieutenants, and staff of @RRamirezVE participated in a fully documented global #corruption network centered in #Andorra. How has @TheJusticeDept not arrested them yet? pic.twitter.com/OK3dWzfvBo
— alek boyd (@alekboyd) September 18, 2018
A third unrelated criminal investigation in Andorra found that Fidel Ramírez, Reinaldo Ramírez (brothers of Rafael Ramírez), Diego Salazar (Rafael Ramírez’s cousin), Nervis Villalobos, and Javier Alvarado (close associates of Rafael Ramírez), all received bribes concerning the awarding of purchase contracts to companies. This investigation has revealed that Derwick Associates paid millions of dollars in bribes to Nervis Villalobos using Swiss bank accounts.
In another independent criminal investigation by the Department of Justice, Francisco Convit, one of the main partners of Derwick Associates, was charged with money laundering. The Department of Justice recently declared Convit a fugitive.