Hugo Chavez’s ex-nurse indicted in US for money laundering
Hugo Chávez’s former nurse has been charged with money laundering in a Miami federal court, accused of taking bribes from a billionaire media mogul to green light lucrative currency transactions when she served as Venezuela’s national treasurer.
Claudia Díaz and her husband, Adrían Velasquez, were accused
of taking at least $4.2 million in furtherance of the bribery scheme, according
to the charges presented Friday. The payments came from companies and bank
accounts located in Switzerland to the couple’s accounts in Miami.
Behind the payments, according to prosecutors, was
businessman Raúl Gorrín, owner of the country’s last major private TV network,
Globovisión. Gorrin is on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
most-wanted list after being charged for his alleged role in a $2.4 billion
money laundering conspiracy in 2017. His TV network is under U.S. sanctions for
its alleged role propping up the socialist government of Chávez’s successor,
Nicolás Maduro.
Díaz, 46, was a former petty officer in Venezuela’s navy who
took care of an ailing Chávez before the Venezuelan leader died of cancer in
2013. In 2011, Chávez named her Venezuela’s national treasurer. She was
replaced when Maduro was elected in 2013.
Díaz and her husband, a former security adviser to Chávez,
currently live in Madrid, where they were briefly arrested in 2018 on a
Venezuelan warrant. Spain’s supreme court rejected Venezuela’s extradition
request, finding the couple could be tortured if they return home.
U.S. prosecutors have charged dozens of Maduro-connected
officials and businessmen as part of a campaign to root out corruption plaguing
the oil-rich South American nation. As much as $300 billion is estimated to
have been raided from Venezuela’s state coffers in two decades of socialist
rule.
It was not immediately possible to communicate with Díaz.
But in August her Madrid lawyer, Ismael Oliver, denied the couple had profited
from their positions in power.
Díaz succeeded Alejandro Andrade as Venezuela’s treasurer in
2011. In what is the biggest judgment against a former Venezuelan to date,
Andrade in 2018 agreed to forfeit more than $1 billion in proceeds he
acknowledged receiving in return for approving lucrative currency deals. The
arrangement, allegedly promoted by Gorrín and others, continued when Díaz took
his place.
Rigid currency controls in place in Venezuela for over a
decade have been a major driver of graft, allowing a privileged few to purchase
hard currency from the government at the overvalued official exchange rate and
resell on the black market for huge profits.
Díaz and her husband have long struggled to explain their
abundant wealth. In 2014, a company established in the Caribbean island nation
of St. Vincent and the Grenadines that she allegedly controlled purchased 250
gold bars valued at more than $9.5 million, according to court records from
Liechtenstein obtained by The Associated Press.
The bars, weighing a kilogram (2.2 pounds) each, were stored
at a private vault in the tiny European principality available to Díaz and her
son after his 18th birthday. A few years later, a nearly identical amount of
bullion was sold by a representative of Díaz, with much of the proceeds
deposited into a Swiss bank.
Comments
Post a Comment