Venezuela will request Panama and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines the repatriation of funds sent to those countries in a fraud denounced by the government for 4 thousand 850 million dollars in the state oil company PDVSA, Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami said on Wednesday.
“We will insist on requesting the repatriation of money that was stolen and we will never give up the defense of our assets,” the minister said in a meeting with the press.
On Tuesday, El Aissami reported to the Public Ministry a “mega fraud” in Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), blaming former Minister Rafael Ramírez for the case.
This was the “megafraud” in Venezuela
The official handed over to journalists on Wednesday copies of documents according to which PDVSA would have made 28 payments totaling 4 thousand 850 million dollars for a loan contracted in February 2012 with the private company Atlantic 17,107 AC, without the state company, according to this complaint, receiving the loan money.
The line of credit, according to the official complaint, was assigned by Atlantic to foreign “funds” Violet Advisors SA and Welka Holding Limited, based in Panama and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, respectively, and these new “creditors” received payments between 2012 and 2013, always according to the government.
Target of investigations for corruption since 2017, in a judicial offensive that has since brought a hundred arrests of former directors of the state company, Rafael Ramírez described the complaint as a setup.
The authorities announced on Tuesday the arrest of the former vice president of Finance of PDVSAVíctor Aular, for this case.
The Prosecutor’s Office reported in February 2021 that it issued an Interpol red alert for Ramírez to be captured in Italy, but that country denied the possibility of extradition.
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Former President of PDVSA (2004-2014) and former Minister of Petroleum (2002-2014), Ramírez was one of the trusted men of the late former President Hugo Chávez (1999-2014). He broke up at the end of 2017 with his successor, Nicolás Maduro, and then resigned from the post of Venezuelan ambassador to the UN.
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