Some 40 people have been arrested in Venezuela as part of an anti-corruption “crusade” linked to the state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which has included the fall of the oil minister, announced Attorney General Tarek William Saab.
“To date, the Public Prosecution Service has managed, in collaboration with auxiliary bodies, to arrest 42 people linked to various corruption schemes aimed at embezzling (funds from) the national economy,” Saab tweeted on Saturday, referring to the arrests that began on March 17. He explained to AFP that these officials, company managers and businessmen face up to 30 years in prison (the maximum sentence in Venezuela).
These people are accused of “appropriation or misappropriation of public property, influence peddling, money laundering, criminal association and treason”, he said at a press conference on 25 March, announcing the arrest of 21 people.
This anti-corruption “crusade”, as it has been dubbed by senior officials including President Nicolas Maduro, led to the resignation on March 21 of Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami, who had been considered a key figure in the government and was targeted by U.S. sanctions.
Several of his close associates are among those arrested. The president of the state-owned Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) Pedro Maldonado and officials of the Venezuelan steel giant Sidor are among those arrested in recent days.
This anti-corruption snare had already swept up Antonio Jose Perez Suarez, a vice president of PDVSA, among others, as well as former congressman Hugbel Roa — a creator of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency Petro, theoretically backed by oil — and a manager of these cryptoassets Joselit Ramirez. Mr. Maldonado, former head of the Central Bank of Venezuela, was part of a corruption network led by Mr. Roa, a figure from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), judicial sources told AFP.
The public prosecutor, who did not rule out further arrests, said the seized assets would be confiscated by the state but did not reveal the amount of the alleged embezzlement. The press mentions “3 billion dollars”.
President Maduro, who has launched anti-corruption operations in the past, said in late March that the investigations began in October. Since 2017, Venezuela’s oil industry has been targeted by numerous investigations that have resulted in the arrest of nearly 200 employees and two oil ministers, Eulogio del Pino and Nelson Martinez. The latter died in custody.
