A fisherman navigates past part of the destroyed infrastructure of a platform owned by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA on Lake Maracaibo in Cabimas on May 9, 2019. Michael Robinson Chavez (The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The network of former Chavista deputy ministers investigating the looting of $2 billion from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in Andorra directed a spending spree while simultaneously carrying out the looting of the Latin American country's most important state-owned company. Purchasing a helicopter for $2.6 million, 22 vehicles worth $5.7 million – some of them armored – or paying $5.2 million to a law firm were some of the expenses the property incurred between 2007 and 2007, according to a confidential person 2015 paid report from the Andorra Financial Intelligence Unit (Uifand), to which EL PAÍS had access.
The document shows that the organization purchased a new Eurocopter Ec135 helicopter in November 2011 for 2.6 million euros. This model seats six passengers and a pilot, features a spacious cabin and a noise reduction system, and is marketed as a budget option for private flights.
According to Uifand, the plane conspiracy was obtained through the Panamanian company High Advisory and Consulting SA, controlled by businessman and alleged frontman of the corrupt group, Luis Mariano Rodríguez Cabello. The Andorran investigators' document is dated November 2022 and describes the organization's authorized payments through a complicated network of accounts at Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA), where the network allegedly hid its loot.
Image of an H135 helicopter, a model formerly called the Eurocopter EC135. Christian Keller (Airbus)
The passion for flying was also awakened by renting private jets. Businessman Diego Salazar, the group's alleged mastermind, left $356,263 in this item between March and August 2009. With the amount he was able to finance the passenger transfer of the Hawker 1000 aircraft, which is designed for long-haul flights and offers space for eight passengers and two crew members.
Through Rodríguez Cabello's instrumental company (without activity), the network that plundered the oil company bought a total of 22 vehicles for 5.7 million between 2014 and 2015. The vehicle fleet included, among others, eight Toyota 4 Runner Limited SUVs, 12 Toyota Corollas, an armored Toyota Land Cruiser – which was purchased from a dealer in Miranda (Venezuela) – and another SUV of the same brand, a 2015 Runner model.
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Security was one of the organization's priorities. And because of this, the conspiracy spent another $328,000 on armoring its fleet. Two SUV vehicles (light or urban off-road vehicles) were subjected to Level 5 protection, designed to prevent robberies and kidnappings and to resist handguns and long weapons such as rifles.
The dream of a Ferrari
The attraction to luxury was another constant among the looters. In September 2011, the network's straw man was given a budget of $350,000 to purchase a Ferrari GTB Fiorano, an exclusive aluminum sports car. The report does not indicate whether Rodríguez Cabello ultimately purchased the vehicle.
Image of a Ferrari GTB Fiorano at a motor show in Avignon (France) in March 2012. Jean-Marc Zaorski (Gamma-Rapho/Getty)
The lawyers’ party was also exciting and surprising. The organization, through its frontman, paid $5.2 million to the Venezuelan law firm Mata, Borjas and Priwin between 2011 and 2014. The invoices were paid under vague terms such as “fees for services” and “costs for real estate projects”.
The lawyer Albino Ferreras Garza, who was a partner in the aforementioned law firm in 2011, formulates his professional relationship with the group of Chavista politicians in a contract with the company InverDT CA, whose shareholders included Rodríguez Cabello and Diego Salazar. “We have been instructed by the legal department of InverDT CA to take care of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Andorra into alleged money laundering,” the lawyer replies to this newspaper by email.
Ferreras Garza is a lawyer close to the Venezuelan authorities and, according to Armando.info, was legal advisor to other people involved in the alleged bribery operation of the energy company and its subsidiaries, such as Rafael Sarría or Fidel Ramírez.
A $120,000 trainer
Analysis of the payments reveals strange expenses, such as $120,000 paid out in March 2014 for coaching services.
The network, which managed a real estate deal worth 52 million, which included 21 luxury properties, as this newspaper revealed, allocated much of its funds to the renovation and decoration of its brick investments. The property paid $200,000 for the conversion project of three apartments in the Torre Edicampo building in Caracas; 200,000 in carpentry; 198,369 for office and residential lighting; 178,000 for air conditioning; 80,530 in decorative items; and 55,489 for “security and infrastructure consulting,” the documents said.
The decoration and accessories section is completed by an invoice for 123,900 euros paid by the network in October 2012 to the exclusive French silverware and tableware store Christofle.
Entrepreneurship with looted funds
Through the instrumental signature of the organization's alleged straw man, Luis Mariano Rodríguez Cabello, the organization that plundered PDVSA also spent more than a million euros on the project to build an industrial canteen in Caracas. The sum included kitchen appliance payouts of $169,484.
About thirty former officials of the powerful state-owned company and former Chavista leaders were part of the network that plundered PDVSA between 2007 and 2012. The former strongmen of former President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), the former deputy energy ministers of Venezuela Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado were part of this organization, which set up a plan to hide the collection of illegal commissions. The program reportedly included 10% of businessmen, particularly Chinese, who received public contracts from the energy company and its subsidiaries.
In order to jeopardize the flow of black money from the alleged payment of bribes, the organization hid its loot through an opaque network of accounts in the BPA, 7,400 kilometers from Caracas. The offshore network circulated over thirty companies in Switzerland and Belize.
To conceal the legitimacy of the theft, the proceeds were disguised under the guise of consulting jobs that, according to investigators, did not exist. The Andorran judiciary traces the money laundering in a banking institution to the members of the conspiracy. And the BPA, the entity of the Little Pyrenees country that hosted the flow of dirty money, was intervened by the authorities of that country in 2015 for alleged money laundering by criminal groups.
Chavistas lawyer: “There were no legal reasons for the blockade”
The lawyer Albino Ferreras Garza, who in 2011 was a partner in the Venezuelan law firm Mata Borjas, Priwin and Ferreras – a firm that, according to the Financial Intelligence Unit of Andorra (Uifand), collected 5.2 million from the Chavista property between 2011 and 2014 – He assures that the company to which he belonged provided real services to the group of alleged looters of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (Pdvsa) since 2010. And that this work was intensified in 2011, when investigations into the alleged irregular origins of the organization's money began in Andorra. “The first step was to request an interview with the legal department of Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) to know the institutional opinion on the case and, according to the bank's position, there were no positions that could be blocked” , the lawyer answers. Email regarding the decision to freeze the group's funds in the Andorran branch.
According to Ferreras Garza, “an American lawyer was later asked to investigate open cases in New York that could be related to the causes of the blockade.” His professional services, he adds, included “coordination of specialists from different areas of law.” .
According to the lawyer, the relationship between the Chavista group and the alleged looters began in 2010. “I was asked to help me take over an engineering company,” explains Ferreras Garza.
The lawyer admits that this year he opened an account with the BPA – the organization the Chavista conspiracy turned to to hide the alleged plunder of oil – to collect fees for his professional services. And it is stated that the company to which it belonged provided its services to the company InverDT CA (and not to High Advisory and Consulting SA). “We understand that [esta última empresa] “It is a financial department under the direct leadership of Mr. Rodríguez.”
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