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El Nuevo Herald
Businessmen close to the regime of Nicolás Maduro and former Venezuelan officials were charged in court Wednesday Miami to be part of a huge network of corruption.
Businessmen, some of whom are identified in the indictment as "Bolichicos" (businessmen enriched by Chavezism), are accused of taking advantage of the gigantic differential between the tax rate. In Venezuela, bolichico is a term used to describe a select group of young Venezuelans who have amassed huge fortunes in Chavez 's shadow.
At the center of the charge is the Venezuelan Francisco Convit Guruceaga, one of the major shareholders of the controversial firm Derwick Associates, questioned for obtaining non-transparent contracts in the Venezuelan energy sector.
In the indictment, filed in the Miami Federal Court, the authorities warned that operations such as the one handled by the defendants are flooding South Florida with l 'affidavit. Poorly acquired money from Venezuela
"The diversion of diminishing international reserves is the fuel of these corruption plans with the exchange rate.PVSA is the main source of income and foreign exchange (mainly the US dollar and the US dollar). euro), are used to fuel this type of corrupt operations, "said the indictment filed with the court.
"The State of Crisis The Venezuelan social and political fabric, through which multi-billion dollar corrupt ecosystems flourish, feeds a flotilla of criminal funds that crosses South Florida,
Product of a two-year investigation called Operation Money Fugue, the accusation reveals the existence of an international conspiracy to launder the funds of PDVSA by through a two-year investigation of Miami and several international money-laundering organizations.
"Specifically, investigations have revealed the use of the" Act of D & # 39; 39; accusation.
In addition to Convit, eight accused appear in court documents and enumerate nine unidentified co-conspirators. Among them, a German citizen arrested Tuesday at the Miami International Airport, which carries out banking operations for a number of Venezuelan officials and "kleptocrats".
Matthias Krull, a resident of Panama who also works as a banker in Switzerland, was scheduled to appear in federal court in Miami on Wednesday afternoon
. Another accused, Colombian-American citizen Gustavo Adolfo Hernandez Frieri, was arrested Wednesday in Italy for using his Miami-based financial companies. , Global Security Advisors and Global Strategic Investments, to launder money through false investments in mutual funds.
Other defendants should be arrested in the case, which was filed by federal prosecutor Francisco Maderal, although the arrest of some of the people involved could be difficult because they are in Venezuela, a country that has hostile relations with the East. Among the defendants are also Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui, former legal adviser of the Venezuelan Ministry of Petroleum and Mining, and Abraham Edgardo Ortega, former financial director of the national oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA, PDVSA.
The Court's records indicate that the defendants accumulated millions of dollars using the preferential exchange rate granted only to persons close to the plan.
The difference between the preferential exchange rate and the real exchange rate, acquired on the black market, was ten to one in 2014, which essentially allowed to acquire 100 million dollars paying only 10 million dollars, says one of the documents.
The investigation began in 2014 when authorities detected a foreign exchange system to divert nearly $ 600 million worth of PDVSA, obtained through the payment of bribes and fraud plans.
At that time, the defendants tried to make use of a businessman identified in the documents as Confidential Source (CS) to help them wash some of the misappropriated funds.
In May 2015, the operation had already doubled the amount to $ 1,200 million, says the prosecution
Initially, CS had agreed to do business with the defendants, which essentially consisted of buy dollars at a very good rate, because he had customers in Venezuela to whom he could sell US dollars.
He first performed several operations of this type for tens of millions of dollars, which he initially obtained in euros
But the operation then got into trouble because the refusal of the accused to provide the necessary documents to justify the origin of the funds. the authorities responsible for the transfer of the international financial system and, on at least one occasion, the defendants submitted falsified documents.
The parties held a meeting at the Convit offices in Caracas with CS after stating that they could not continue to work with them in this manner.
"At the Convit meeting, Urdaneta, Amparan and CS were sitting at a table Convit had a pistol on the table [y] next to Convit there was a German shepherd with an electric collar Convit had the remote control of the collar and commented that he could not always control the dog, "notes the document.
In addition, there were many security guards in the office. "The environment was one of total intimidation on the part of Convit," the document added.
Shortly after this meeting, CS began recording their conversations with the defendants, thereby obtaining much of the evidence that will be delivered to the court by the authorities.
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