Venezuela Arrests Ex- Minister Tareck El Aissami And Simon Zerpa in PDVSA corruption case
Caracas, VENEZUELA (AP/REUTERS) — Venezuela’s once-powerful oil minister, who resigned unexpectedly last year during a corruption probe at the top ranks of the state-run crude industry, has been arrested, the government said Tuesday. The former oil czar is being investigated over an alleged scheme through which hundreds of millions of dollars in oil proceeds seemingly disappeared.
The Ministry of Communications released images of Tareck El Aissami being handcuffed and walking down a hallway, flanked by officers. Attorney General Tarek William Saab told reporters that El Aissami will make his first court appearance on Tuesday on charges that include treason, money laundering and criminal association.
Former finance minister Simon Zerpa and businessman Sarmark Lopez have also been detained, Attorney General Tarek Saab said at a press conference.
El Aissami surprisingly resigned in March 2023 amid a wide anti-corruption probe ordered by Maduro, which has been mainly focused on wrongdoing at PDVSA. El Aissami has not spoken publicly for more than a year.
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Saab did not say when El Aissami was arrested.
The oil minister resigned a few days before senior officials in the government of President Nicolás Maduro and business leaders were arrested in March 2023 as part of an investigation into the corruption scheme that was based on international oil sales. El Aissami disappeared from public life after the arrests and his whereabouts were frequently questioned.
Former finance minister Simon Zerpa and businessman Sarmark Lopez have also been detained, Attorney General Tarek Saab said at a press conference.
El Aissami surprisingly resigned in March 2023 amid a wide anti-corruption probe ordered by Maduro, which has been mainly focused on wrongdoing at PDVSA. El Aissami has not spoken publicly for more than a year.
El Aissami and his allies used U.S. sanctions as an excuse to directly manage shipments of crude, Saab added, and therefore avoided passing funds through the country’s central bank, also allowing them to speculate on Venezuela’s currency market.
Through the end of 2022, PDVSA accumulated tens of billions of dollars in commercial accounts receivable tied to dozens of little-known middlemen companies, which replaced big-name customers barred by U.S. sanctions.
Saab last year said the oversight agency allegedly signed contracts for the loading of crude on ships “without any type of administrative control or guarantees,” violating legal regulations. He said that once the oil was marketed, “the corresponding payments were not made” to the state oil company.
Saab on Tuesday called El Aissami a “master” of corruption who “thought he would never be arrested.” The attorney general added that five people previously arrested as part of the investigation had received death threats while in jail — after they agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
The government has not said exactly how much money the state lost as a result of the shadowy transactions. But internal PDVSA documents obtained by The Associated Press last year show the state oil company was owed $10.1 billion as of August 2022 from 90 mostly unknown trading companies that emerged as major buyers of Venezuelan crude since the U.S. imposed economic sanctions in a campaign to oust Maduro.
An additional $13.3 billion, corresponding to 241 shipments, was owed directly to the government as a result of an accounting maneuver by PDVSA that reassigned responsibility for collecting the unpaid invoices directly to the Maduro administration in lieu of cash royalties.
All the oil cargo was sold on consignment at a deep discount owing to the sanctions, which have scared away more established traders. To avoid Western banks, Venezuela started accepting payments in Russian rubles, bartered goods or cryptocurrency, but not everyone paid.
Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.