Nicolás Maduro’s government, through state spokesmen, has continued to announce arrests and prosecutions of Venezuelan officials involved in the multi-million dollar PDVSA-Crypto scam, a corruption plot consisting of the diversion of funds from the sale of oil in the Framework of international sanctions against the country, allegedly in connection with Tareck El Aissami, Vice President of the Economic Area. The illegals included the Venezuelan Corporation of Guiana and some communities.
The arrest of Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido, contractor of the Venezuelan state and partner of Álex Saab — at the request of the United States for money laundering — is one of the most commented novelties of this new wave of arrests, which also includes some officials from the mayor’s office of Baruta, one opposition-controlled metropolitan municipality in eastern Caracas.
Search file for Álvaro Pulido Vargas, partner of Alex Saab.EFEI0023
Investigative portal Armando.Info had published several reports reporting the diversion of $1.5 billion from both Pulido and Saab for transactions related to the sale of Venezuelan oil in operations similar to the PDVSA-Crypto case. With those nine additional incarcerated, 58 officers have already been brought to justice in this anti-corruption purge called Who Falls. Attorney General Tarek William Saab reported that “67 arrest warrants were issued and 142 court searches conducted in search of those responsible”.
The Minister of Communications and Information, Freddy Náñez, confirmed that a presentation hearing had been held for Harold Rafael Sosa Padilla, Municipal Engineering Director of the Baruta Mayor’s Office, and Juan Carlos Posner, Deputy Director of this municipal entity. A few days ago, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the legislature and Maduro’s right-hand man, announced in a parliamentary speech that the ongoing investigations could include opposition officials, demanding that “they will not come later to make them political prisoners.”
Along with them is named Pulido, who in this case is referred to as Hugbel Roa’s financial operator, and Pedro Herrera Araque, financial operator and brother-in-law of Roa, one of the disgraced Chavista MPs, and like Pedro Maldonado, Hugo Cabezas, and Pulido himself , El Aissami’s chips on the map of revolutionary power.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe to
The Chavista authorities also announced the arrest of Juan Almeida, a digital security expert, a well-known and feared hacker who uses the nickname N33 and is also close to El Aissami. Almeida, along with his brothers José Luis and Carlos Jesús Almeida Morgado, have been labeled as the “technological operators of the PDVSA crypto conspiracy.” In 2021, Colombian Alvaro Pulido – along with several other regime officials charged in this trial – was charged with money laundering and bribery by the United States, which offered large sums of money for information about his whereabouts.
The detainees were shown to the press in orange panties, a modality not seen in the country in the past, and were detained by the recently created National Anti-Corruption Police at the headquarters of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service in El Helicoide prison.
The Maduro government has made no further comments on the arrest of Pulido, a partner of Saab, a Colombian businessman who is being held in Cape Verde and is now being held in a federal prison, and whom Chavismo gave diplomatic status in his efforts to serve as an agent the Maduro government acted to open trade routes to the Chavista regime under international sanctions, which the US has accused of money laundering and corruption.
Maduro and the highly revolutionary government have made defending Saab, insisting he is innocent and demanding his release a state issue into which millions of dollars have been invested.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.