Spain agrees to extradite former Venezuelan treasurer to the US
Spain's Judiciary Friday gave the green light for the
extradition to the United States of Venezuelan national Claudia Patricia Díaz
Guillén, to account for crimes of money laundering and criminal organization.
Venezuela's former Trasurer is believed to have favored
businessman Raúl Gorrín in a plot to exchange foreign currency which earned him
hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the Federal Court of the Southern District of
Florida, from 2008 to 2017 the two suspects participated along with other
accomplices, including Díaz Guillén's husband, in a “corrupt ploy” through
which payments were made to Venezuelan government officials “to ensure an undue
advantage in obtaining and withholding the right to carry out foreign currency
exchange transactions at favorable rates.”
To hide these payments Gorrín allegedly used bank accounts
whose holders were fictitious companies and disguised numerous bribes to Díaz
Guillén as payments to her husband. Between 2011 to 2013, the businessman paid
bribes amounting to at least US $ 65 million through account transfers from
Switzerland to the US. Gorrín also bought and defrayed expenses related to
private planes, yachts, mansions, champion horses or watches, also including
the purchase of fashion firms in Florida and Texas.
Díaz Guillén's defense lawyers had claimed she was being
tried for the same crimes in Spain, where she has dual citizenship, but these
arguments did not prevail since the judges concluded the facts investigated in
Spain were not the same. Specifically, she is being investigated in Spain for
the purchase of a 1.8 million euro home with money from Switzerland, while the
US investigation is “much broader.” In fact, the court for the Southern
District of Florida has indicted Díaz Guillén with one count of conspiracy to
commit money laundering and two counts of money laundering.
Díaz Guillén, a former treasurer under President Hugo
Chávez, was arrested and later released along with her husband, Adrián José
Velásquez, in Madrid, in December 2020, after the United States' claim, which
days before, during that month, filed charges against both of them for
participating in a corrupt currency exchange scheme. Despite their release,
both were prohibited from leaving Spain and had to appear before the
authorities on a fortnightly basis.
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