By: Marianna Parraga and Deisy Buitrago
March 25, 2023
CARACAS, March 25 (Reuters) - An expanding anti-corruption
probe in Venezuela has led to the detention of 10 officials and 11 businessmen,
the country's attorney general said on Saturday, adding that arrest warrants
for 11 more people have been issued.
The investigation, which began in October, is focused on
state oil company PDVSA, a government entity supervising crypto currency
operations, and the judiciary. This week, it led to the resignation of the
country's powerful oil minister, Tareck El Aissami, who had served the
government for two decades.
"We are talking about one of the most lurid plots in
recent years, which involves officials, businessmen who benefited from
corruption and young people - including the so-called mafia women - who
participated in corruption and money laundering," Attorney General Tarek
Saab told journalists in a press conference.
A Venezuelan entity supervising the use of crypto currency
for official transactions was assigned oil cargoes for sale with no
administrative control, Saab said. Many of the buyers did not pay for the oil
correspondingly, he added.
PDVSA has accumulated $21.2 billion in commercial accounts
receivable since 2020 including $3.6 billion potentially unrecoverable,
documents viewed by Reuters showed this week, after turning to dozens of little
known intermediaries to export its oil under U.S. sanctions.
The 21 people arrested face accusations of appropriation of
public assets, money laundering, influence peddling and criminal association.
Officials involved could also face charges of treason, the attorney general
said.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, who said he has been
directly overseeing the probe, this week appointed PDVSA's head Pedro Tellechea
as new oil minister, delegating in him the supervision of the whole industry.
In the last five years, Saab's office has investigated 31
cases linked to corruption in Venezuela's oil industry, which provides most of
the OPEC country's hard-currency revenue, leading to almost 200 people
prosecuted.
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