Image copyright AFP Image caption Those charged are accused of taking bribes in return for lucrative PDVSA contracts

A judge in Andorra has charged 28 people with corruption - among them two Venezuelan former deputy ministers.

Prosecutors allege that they were part of a network of corrupt officials who received $2.3bn (£1.8bn) in bribes from companies in return for lucrative contracts with Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA.

They allegedly hid the money in the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) bank.

BPA is defunct after it was named as a "primary money-laundering concern".

Judge Canòlic Mingorance in Andorra, a tiny financial haven located between France and Spain, charged the 28 with taking kickbacks of up to 15% to facilitate contracts with PDVSA.

The list of those charged includes Diego Salazar, who is the cousin of former oil minister Rafael Ramírez, as well as two men who served as deputy energy ministers in the government of Hugo Chávez. They are Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado.

Fourteen of the accused are Venezuelan, with nine others from Andorra and five from Spain.

There has been no comment so far from those charged.

'Web of corruption'

The network they allegedly formed part of is thought to have taken $2.3bn in bribes between 2007 and 2012.

The money was then laundered and hidden in Andorra's BPA bank before some of it was transferred into tax havens, prosecutors say.

BPA was accused in 2015 by the US treasury of helping organised crime groups launder money. The Andorran authorities ended up seizing its assets.

Judge Mingorance has been investigating the case since 2012. She alleges that the accused "joined forces to take control of PDVSA's public tendering as well as energy infrastructure projects run by PDVSA's subsidiaries, Corpoelec and Electricity of Caracas".

Former BPA bank officials have also been charged.

Critics of the current Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro and that of his predecessor, President Chávez, have long suspected that officials misappropriated government funds.

On Monday, US treasury official Marshall Billingslea accused President Maduro of "rapacious corruption" and of operating "a kleptocracy".

A number of other high-ranking government officials have had sanctions placed on them and had their assets frozen. Among them is Industry Minister Tarek El Aissaimi, who has been blacklisted by the US for alleged drug trafficking.

Venezuela's government says it is being attacked by "imperialist foes". It blames US sanctions for the dire state of Venezuela's economy, and the poor performance of PDVSA.</s>A Judge in Andorra has charged 29 Venezuela chavista officials with corruption

A judge in Andorra has charged 29 Venezuelans with corruption - among them two former deputy ministers. Prosecutors allege that they were part of a network of corrupt officials who received US$ 2.3bn in bribes from companies in return for lucrative contracts with Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA.

They allegedly hid the money in the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA) bank. BPA is defunct after it was named as a primary money-laundering concern.

Judge Canòlic Mingorance in Andorra, a tiny financial haven located between France and Spain, charged the Venezuelans with taking kickbacks of up to 15% to facilitate contracts with PDVSA, Spanish daily El Pais reports in Spanish.

The list of those charged includes Diego Salazar, who is the cousin of former oil minister Rafael Ramírez, as well as two men who served as deputy energy ministers in the government of Hugo Chávez. They are Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado.

The network they allegedly formed part of is thought to have taken US$ 2.3bn in bribes between 2007 and 2012. The money was then laundered and hidden in Andorra's BPA bank before some of it was transferred into tax havens, prosecutors say.

BPA was accused in 2015 by the US treasury of helping organized crime groups launder money. The Andorran authorities ended up seizing its assets.

Judge Mingorance has been investigating the case since 2012. She alleges that the accused joined forces to take control of PDVSA's public tendering as well as energy infrastructure projects run by PDVSA's subsidiaries, Corpoelec and Electricity of Caracas.

Former BPA bank officials have also been charged.

Critics of the current Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro and that of his predecessor, President Chávez, have long suspected that officials misappropriated government funds.

On Monday, US Treasury official Marshall Billingslea accused president Maduro of rapacious corruption and operating a kleptocracy. A number of other high-ranking government officials have had sanctions placed on them and had their assets frozen. Among them is Industry Minister Tarek El Aissaimi, who has been blacklisted by the US for alleged drug trafficking.</s>Sept. 14 (UPI) -- More than two dozen people were charged with corruption in an alleged kickback scheme linked to Venezuela's state-run oil company.

On Thursday, a judge in Andorra, a tiny country located between France and Spain, charged 28 people, including former high-ranking Venezuelan officials, with receiving up to $2.3 billion in kickbacks to grease the wheels for the oil company, PDVSA. Prosecutors say the money was hidden in the Banca Privada d'Andorra, or BPA, a now-defunct bank linked to money laundering.

Half of those charged are from Venezuela. Nine are from Andorra and five are from Spain.

The list includes Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado, former deputy energy ministers under former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government. It also includes Diego Salazar, the cousin of former oil minister Rafael Ramirez.

The investigation will focus on bribes that were given in exchange for lucrative contracts between 2007 and 2012.

Judge Canolic Mingorance said the accused conspired to take control of PDVSA's energy infrastructure. She's been investigating the case since 2012.

Andorran authorities shut down BPA after the U.S. Treasury found the bank was laundering money to criminal organizations.

Several high-ranking Venezuelan officials already have sanctions on them or have their assets frozen.

U.S. Treasury official Marshall Billingslea recently accused President Nicolas Maduro of "rapacious corruption" and of operating a "kleptocracy."

Venezuela blames U.S. sanctions for the collapse of the country's economy and PDVSA's woes, saying it's under attack by "imperialist foes."</s>Media in Andorra say 29 people, including former Venezuelan officials, have been charged with allegedly laundering gains from a kickbacks-for-contracts scheme that plundered $2 billion from PDVSA — the state oil company of Venezuela — between 2007 and 2012.

The Diari d'Andorra newspaper says an investigating court issued the indictments Thursday, wrapping up a five-year investigation into opaque deposits in the now defunct Banca Privada d'Andorra.

Among those accused are BPA officials; former Venezuelan vice ministers Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado; and Diego Salazar, the high-powered cousin of Rafael Ramirez, who ran PDVSA from 2004 to 2013 and was a close aide of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

The judge says the group received illegal payments from companies that were rewarded with contracts from PDVSA. They hid the profits in shell companies and eventually in BPA accounts.</s>A judge in Andorra has charged 29 Venezuelans with corruption – among them two former Deputy Ministers.

According to a report by the BBC online, prosecutors allege that they were part of a network of corrupt officials who received $2.3bn in bribes from companies in return for lucrative contracts with Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA.

The report states that the accused allegedly hid the money in the Banca Privada D’andorra (BPA) Bank.

Andorra is a tiny financial haven located between France and Spain.

The judge also charged the Venezuelans with taking kickbacks of up to 15% to facilitate contracts with PDVSA.

According to the BBC online the list of those charged includes Diego Salazar, who is the cousin of former Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez, as well as two men who served as Deputy Energy Ministers in the government of Hugo Chávez.

There has been no comment so far from those charged.</s>MADRID (AP) - A judge in Andorra has charged 28 people, including former officials in Venezuela, with money laundering offenses over a kickbacks-for-contracts scheme that plundered $2 billion from the Venezuelan state oil company between 2007 and 2012.

Investigating magistrate Canolic Mingorance issued the indictments on Thursday, wrapping up a five-year investigation into opaque deposits in the Banca Privada d'Andorra, or BPA, according to court documents seen by The Associated Press.

Among those accused are nine people from Andorra, five from Spain and 14 Venezuelans, including former deputy ministers Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado, as well as Luis Carlos de Leon-Perez, a former official at a state-run electric company in Caracas.

The judge places Diego Salazar, the high-powered cousin of Venezuela's longtime oil czar Rafael Ramirez, at the top of the alleged scheme.

Ramirez, a close aide of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was energy minister and ran Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, from 2004 to 2013, before becoming Venezuela's envoy to the United Nations until last year, when he fell out with the country's current leadership, resigned and went into hiding.

The Andorran judge says the group received illegal payments from companies, many of them from China, that were rewarded with contracts related to the oil industry. The Andorra-based bank's management then hid the profits in shell companies in various countries, but the money was eventually made available in BPA accounts.

The group "joined forces to control the public bids of PDVSA and the construction of energy-related infrastructure" contracted by the company and its affiliates, the judge wrote in the indictment. She added that its members were so close to "the circles of power of the state" that some of them were informed when early notices of the investigation were shared with Venezuela by Interpol.

In 2015, Andorra intervened in the private bank after the United States Treasury Department accused it of laundering money from groups in China, Russia and Venezuela.

Since then, the tiny mountainous country of 75,000 has taken steps to shake off its reputation as a tax haven, scrapping bank secrecy laws and passing legislation to meet international standards.

The Diari d'Andorra, a local newspaper, said that none of the Venezuelans indicted in the case showed up on Thursday in the capital, Andorra La Vella, to receive the court's notice.

De Leon has pleaded guilty to money laundering and other charges in the U.S., where judicial authorities are also investigating the bribery scheme within and around PDVSA. A court in Houston is scheduled to deliver a sentence later this month.

Spain agreed to extradite Villalobos as part of the same case, but Ramirez's former deputy at PDVSA can't be sent to the U.S. until he is tried by Spanish courts in two separate cases.

Alvarado's whereabouts is not known, while Salazar has been in pre-trial detention in Venezuela since the country's top prosecutor there ordered his arrest late last year.
28 former Venezuelan officials are charged with corruption by a judge in Andorra.