Justice Dept. charges five in Venezuelan bribery and money laundering scheme
The Justice Department announced charges Thursday against
five people, including a Colombian linked to Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro, for laundering money as part of a bribery scheme involving a government
food and medicine program.
The federal grand jury's five-count indictment was unsealed
Thursday, charging three Columbians and two Venezuelans for laundering money
they received through gaining inflated government contracts by bribing
officials.
The contracts were granted through the Comite Local de
Abastecimiento y Produccion, also known as CLAP, for the importation and
distribution of food and medicine to the country's poor.
Prosecutors said the scheme ran from July 2015 to at least
last year during which the men conspired to launder their ill-gotten gains
through bank accounts in Antigua and the United Arab Emirates.
According to the court document, the men received $1.6
billion from Venezuela of which $180 million was laundered through the United
States.
The Justice Department identified the Colombians as Alvaro
Pulido Vargas, 57; Emmanuel Enrique Rubio Gonzalez, 32; and Carlos Rolando
Lizcano Manrique, 50. The Venezuelans were identified as the 55-year-old former
governor of the Venezuelan state of Tachira, Jose Gregorio Vielma-Mora; and Ana
Guillermo Luis 49.
They have been charged with one count of conspiracy to
commit money laundering and four counts of money laundering, and if convicted
they each face a maximum penalty of 100 years in prison, the Justice Department
said in a statement.
The announcement of the charges comes days after Colombian
Alex Nain Saab Moran, who is an ally to Maduro and an associate of Pulido
Vargas, was extradited to the United States to face money laundering charges.
The United States imposed sanctions against Saab, 49, as
well as three of Maduro's stepsons in July of 2019 from profiting from CLAP
food imports. Saab was also sanctioned by the United States last year for
brokering the sale of tens of millions of barrels of crude oil on behalf of
Venezuela's sanctioned state-owned oil company.
In July, Britain sanctioned both Saab and Pulido Vargas for
exploiting two of Venezuela's public programs to provide food and housing the
the nation's poor.
The Biden administration has ramped up efforts to combat
corruption, particularly in the Central America, viewing it as a root cause for
migration.
In June, President Joe Biden issued a memorandum to fight
corruption, a move that was followed in July by the imposition of sanctions
against 55 Central American officials.
Later that same month, the Treasury blacklisted a former
Honduran president and his wife for their involvement in "significant
corruption" while in office.
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