Tareck El Aissami, the criminologist at the head of the devastated PDVSA in Venezuela

Tareck El Aissami He is not a media politician like Diosdado Cabello or Nicolás Maduro himself, but he is the “hard” team and its main lever with foreign groups that support the ruling Chavista regime in Venezuela. And share with them the gallery of the most wanted by American justice which offers 10 million rewards for their capture.

US Department of Justice and Office of Treasury Assets (OFAC) are looking for him for alleged reasons money laundering, drug trafficking and terrorism. The European Union also has it on its sanctioned list.

The accusations were denied by the official media. The “Arab” as his colleagues on the left call him is a super minister who has held the most important government positions during the 22 years that Chavismo has been in power. He is the current Minister of Petroleum, president of PDVSA, also vice-president in the economic field and responsible for industry and commerce.

Two weeks ago, he promised he would increase oil production from 500 thousand to 1.5 million barrels a day this year, but did not explain how and with what resources it will do it if the infrastructure of the oil industry is on the ground and the five refineries in the country they collapsed and they don’t produce a drop of gasoline or diesel.

Venezuelans have faced fuel shortages for the past two years, which has crippled the economy. Import from Iran, paid in gold, this is not sufficient for an internal consumption of two months. Before Chávez, the country produced 3.3 million barrels per day of crude and refined 1.3 million barrels per day of fuel.

Russians, Iranians and Chinese

The current Minister of Petroleum has opened the doors of state industry to the Russians, Iranians and Chinese so that they increase the exploitation of the oil fields but the attempts were unsuccessful as they could not replenish production to past levels. “They failed,” he said Bugle analyst José Toro Hardy.

The Aissami is a criminologist lawyer 46 years old, graduate with honors from the University of Los Andes (ULA), now placed to lead the petroleum industry. He was born in Vigía, in the state of Mérida, where he grew up in a humble family of immigrants from Syria and Lebanon who now live in a luxurious mansion.

It is the second of five brothers. His father Carlos Zaidan El Aissami, a Syrian migrant, was the head of the Venezuelan section of the Arab socialist political party Baath in Iraq, as was Saddam Hussein. His uncle Shibli El Aissami was an official of the Hussein regime.

His dizzying career began at the hands of his mentor Adán Chávez, brother of former President Hugo Chávez. From his youth militated on the left of the MVR (Chavist Party) which merged with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Psuv).

His contacts with the Chávez family allowed him climb and run in the official nomenclature which began with the attribution of the identity of the mission and then continued with the head of citizen security, the Minister of the Interior and Justice, the deputy of the Assembly national, the vice-president of the republic and the governor of Aragua, a central state of Venezuela.

Violence

Its passage through the previous positions coincides with the rise in the indices of violence and repression. For example, cases exceeded 20,000 homicides per year when he was Minister of the Interior and Justice (2008-2012). And when he was governor of Aragua, the dreaded criminal gang of “el Tren de Aragua” grew and the highest number of violent deaths of 142 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016 was recorded in the region.

It is economical and speak little. He’s not eloquent or flaunts his power, instead he acts with a low profile so as not to be in the sights of the press. His televised speeches are short and written in advance. His thing is to organize and perform behind the scenes so as not to leave traces of his intervention.

“He’s a cunning and discreet conspirator, a cunning man, a devious man, a negotiator who triangulates and sets up operations with public funds and resources. Also form alliances with leftist groups, whether radical and Islamic, cases of Iran, Hezbollah or Etarra, or Russian, Iranian, Cuban mafias, with the ultimate goal of guaranteeing the perpetuation of the power “, explains a professor who has known him from a student leader at ULA and whom he preferred keep anonymity for fear of reprisals.

In dialogue with Bugle the analyst Joseph humire, director of the Center for Studies for a Free and Secure Society, claims that Tareck El Aissami has infiltrated the terrorist group Hezbollah from Lebanon and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (GRI) into Venezuela, which are engaged in illicit activities such as that the drug trafficking and arms sales.

According to Humire, the super minister it’s dangerous because it would be linked to “a criminal terrorist network made up of more than 40 companies across Latin America to send illicit money to the Middle East.” This network would be managed by his brother, Feras El Aissami ”.

Iván Simonovis, security commissioner of the interim government proclaimed by Juan Guaidó in Venezuela, points out that Tareck El Aissami is a Syrian-Venezuelan citizen “with deep ties to Hezbollah, which guarantees that the money that finances all criminal activists linked to this mafia, continues to flow. “

“I can guarantee that Venezuela is today the largest money laundering company in the world,” he said.

The Arab and Islamic community is now one of the the most prosperous in the country. He reached levels of wealth never seen before, in the heat of the Chavist revolution.

Caracas, special

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