BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — U.S. prosecutors are looking into whether relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were benefiting from what they contend was a scheme to siphon off $1.2 billion from the state-owned oil company, two people familiar with the U.S. investigation told The Associated Press.

The leader has dodged corruption allegations that have resulted in charges against other officials.

In documents filed Wednesday, a banker admitted that he plotted with men identified as "Los Chamos" to launder a $200 million slice of stolen funds from the oil company PDVSA.

Sources said Los Chamos actually are the children of First Lady Cilia Flores.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the allegations.

Neither Maduro, his wife nor her children are named in a criminal complaint.</s>A former Swiss banker has pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to helping launder $1.2 billion of money embezzled from Venezuela’s bankrupt state oil company in a scheme that involved close relatives of a Venezuelan official.

People familiar with the case say that official is President Nicolás Maduro.</s>(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File). FILE- In this May 24, 2018 file photo, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores greets the media as they arrive to a military parade at Fort Tiuna in Caracas, Venezuela. U.S. prosecutors are loo...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - As President Nicolas Maduro has pushed forward with his plan to rescue Venezuela's cratering economy, U.S. prosecutors are looking into whether members of his family were simultaneously benefiting from what they contend was a scheme to siphon off $1.2 billion from the state-owned oil company, two people familiar with the U.S. investigation told The Associated Press.

The investigation, which gained momentum this week with a key guilty plea in Miami federal court, is part of a vast, multi-year effort by U.S. prosecutors to close the net on Maduro, who has largely dodged the allegations of corruption that have resulted in charges against several senior officials.

In court documents filed Wednesday, a Swiss banker named Matthias Krull admitted that he plotted with men identified only as "Los Chamos" - Venezuelan slang for "the kids" - to launder a $200 million slice of stolen funds from the oil company PDVSA.

Los Chamos actually are Yoswal, Yosser and Walter Flores, the children of First Lady Cilia Flores from a previous relationship and thus Maduro's stepsons, according to the two Americans who discussed the case with the AP. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the allegations.

In a criminal complaint unsealed last month and as part of a factual statement filed with Krull's plea agreement, he and prosecutors refer to them as the "stepsons" of "Venezuelan Official 2," who the two Americans said is Maduro.

Maduro, his wife and her sons were not named in the complaint. But both sources said prosecutors are looking for any links between the first couple and what they believe is a network that funneled hundreds of millions of Venezuela's oil wealth into south Florida luxury real estate, at a time of widespread shortages and hyperinflation in the South American nation.

Several of those assets already are being targeted for seizure, as well as about $45 million at City National Bank of New Jersey and accounts in the Bahamas, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, one of Maduro's closest aides, did not return repeated messages from the AP seeking comment.

No contact information was available for Maduro's stepsons so they could not be reached for comment.

In daily, hours-long appearances on state TV, Maduro has cultivated an image of himself as a plain-speaking everyman motivated more by ideology than personal gain. But that reputation began to change when two of his wife's nephews were convicted in New York in 2016 of conspiring to smuggle cocaine, exposing his little-known family life to the scrutiny of U.S. investigators for the first time.

Corruption is rampant in Venezuela, and U.S. prosecutors have uncovered billions in fraud and bribes at PDVSA.

The Miami probe - the biggest money-laundering case ever lodged against Venezuelan officials and their associates - comes as Maduro is under increasing pressure to resign and on the heels of an attack with explosives-laden drones that he has called an assassination attempt mounted by the U.S. and his opponents.

A Homeland Security investigator said in last month's criminal affidavit that the conspirators ginned up a currency-exchange scheme using fake loan agreements with the oil giant designed to embezzle about $1.2 billion at a time of collapsing production levels.

At the center of the scheme, prosecutors contend, was Krull, a German national with roots in Venezuela. He was arrested in July at Miami's airport on a criminal complaint naming him and seven other defendants, as well as nine unnamed conspirators, some of them former PDVSA officials. Krull later agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and was charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit money-laundering, for which he faces up to 10 years in prison.

According to court records, prosecutors arrested Krull based on information from a confidential source who reached out in 2014 offering to surrender his take from the money-laundering scheme. Over the next two years, the unnamed individual secretly recorded some 100 conversations with several conspirators, including Krull, who until June worked in Panama for Zurich-based private bank Julius Baer.

Krull is described in the criminal complaint as a "high-level" banker who managed the wealth of several Venezuelan officials and "kleptocrats." He also was referred to as the "personal banker" for "Conspirator 7," who is described as the owner of a Venezuelan TV network and billionaire member of the so-called "boliburgues" that made fortunes under the Bolivarian revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez.

The two people familiar with the case said Conspirator 7 is Raul Gorrin, who became president of Globovision shortly after he and others in 2013 purchased the popular network and softened its anti-government news coverage. Gorrin's Miami lawyer did not return an email and attempts to contact him at Globovision were unsuccessful.

In his plea deal signed Wednesday, Krull said that Conspirator 7 asked him in 2016 to help launder $600 million from fraudulent business transactions with PDVSA. Later, he appealed to him for an "urgent solution" to move an additional $200 million held in a European bank on behalf of other unnamed individuals. Krull said he joined the conspiracy after being introduced directly to Los Chamos at the offices of Conspirator 7.

Krull said in the plea deal that it was explained to him how Los Chamos helped Conspirator 7 "solve issues with Venezuelan Official 2 by intervening with their mother, the wife of Venezuelan Official 2."

Krull's lawyer had no comment. Prosecutors in Miami did not return a phone call seeking comment. Julius Baer, which was not named in the U.S. complaint, said it fully cooperates with authorities but that it could not comment on potential client relationships.

Prosecutors say the embezzled funds involved in Krull's plea deal were generated by a 2014 loan that the oil company obtained in local bolivars from a Venezuelan shell company. Two months later, they say, PDVSA repaid the loan to a Hong Kong-based shell company called Eaton Global, which had taken over the loan, at an official exchange rate well above the black market rate used by the majority of Venezuelans when buying hard currency.

Prosecutors say that allowed Eaton, which they contend was controlled by the conspirators, to collect some 511 million euros from PDVSA - almost 15 times the original loan amount, according to Krull's plea and worksheets obtained by investigators.

One of the first lady's nephews was serving as PDVSA's vice president of finance at the time the loan was repaid to Eaton.

Cilia Flores' three sons range in age from 28 to 39. Two of them, Yoswal and Yosser, have kept a low profile and never occupied public office. The oldest, Walter, was appointed by Maduro in 2014 to head a government-financed foundation focused on social assistance programs for the poor. He was replaced 18 months later.

Maduro met Flores in the 1990s when she was as a lawyer helping win Chavez's release from jail for leading a failed coup attempt. After a two-decade relationship, they married shortly after Maduro was elected in 2013.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Matthias Krull, a German national, entered a guilty plea today for his role in the $1.2 billion PDVSA embezzlement case.

Krull, formerly managing director and vice chairman of Swiss bank Julius Baer, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and is now expected to be sentenced in late October, according to the Department of Justice press release issued late on Wednesday. His specialty at the Swiss bank was Venezuelan clients.

In the plea, Krull detailed how he joined a group of individuals who had embezzled the funds, with the intent to launder the billion-plus dollars using Florida real estate and other false investment schemes to hide the fact that the money came from troubled PDVSA.

The embezzlement began sometime in 2014.

The co-conspirators in the case include former PDVSA officials and other Venezuelan nationals, including Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui, former legal counsel to the Venezuelan Minister of Oil and Mining, and Abraham Edgardo Ortega, former Executive Director of Finance at PDVSA.

Other PDVSA officials were allegedly part of the conspiracy, but remain uncharged members, according to a document filed with the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida.

PDVSA has been at the center of multiple bribery and corruption cases, and Venezuelan’s oil production continues to drop every month, with its oil production now at the lowest point in almost seven decades.

On top of the freefalling production and the general critical status of the country’s economy, the country has seen a lack of investment and an exodus of oil workers who don’t see the point of working for salaries that become worthless overnight due to the 13,860-percent hyperinflation, ConocoPhillips is looking to seize PDVSA assets in the Caribbean in a bid to enforce a court ruling that awarded the U.S. firm US$2 billion in compensation for the forced nationalization of company assets in Venezuela.

Despite this, Venezuela’s oil minister Manual Quevedo spoke in July about its plans to raise PDVSA’s oil production.
• None Spending Boost Fails To Raise Production In The Permian</s>BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Sources: U.S. prosecutors looking into whether relatives of Venezuela’s Maduro benefited from $1.2 billion scheme.</s>BOGOTA, Colombia -- As President Nicolas Maduro has pushed forward with his plan to rescue Venezuela's cratering economy, U.S. prosecutors are looking into whether members of his family were simultaneously benefiting from what they contend was a scheme to siphon off $1.2 billion from the state-owned oil company, two people familiar with the U.S. investigation said.

The investigation, which gained momentum this week with a key guilty plea in Miami federal court, is part of a vast, multiyear effort by U.S. prosecutors to close the net on Maduro, who has largely dodged the allegations of corruption that have resulted in charges against several senior officials.

In court documents filed Wednesday, a Swiss banker named Matthias Krull admitted that he plotted with men identified only as "Los Chamos" -- Venezuelan slang for "the kids" -- to launder a $200 million slice of stolen funds from the oil company PDVSA.

Los Chamos actually are Yoswal, Yosser and Walter Flores, the children of first lady Cilia Flores from a previous relationship and thus Maduro's stepsons, according to the two Americans who discussed the case with The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the allegations.

In a criminal complaint unsealed last month and as part of a factual statement filed with Krull's plea agreement, he and prosecutors refer to them as the "stepsons" of "Venezuelan Official 2," who the two Americans said is Maduro.

Maduro, his wife and her sons were not named in the complaint. But both sources said prosecutors are looking for any links between the first couple and what they believe is a network that funneled hundreds of millions from Venezuela's oil wealth into south Florida luxury real estate at a time of widespread shortages and hyperinflation in the South American nation.

Several of those assets already are being targeted for seizure, as well as about $45 million at City National Bank of New Jersey and accounts in the Bahamas, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, one of Maduro's closest aides, did not return repeated messages seeking comment.

No contact information was available for Maduro's stepsons, so they could not be reached for comment.

In daily, hourslong appearances on state TV, Maduro has cultivated an image of himself as a plain-speaking everyman motivated more by ideology than personal gain. But that reputation began to change when two of his wife's nephews were convicted in New York in 2016 of conspiring to smuggle cocaine, exposing his little-known family life to the scrutiny of U.S. investigators for the first time.

A Homeland Security investigator said in last month's criminal affidavit that the conspirators ginned up a currency-exchange scheme using fake loan agreements with the oil giant designed to embezzle about $1.2 billion at a time of collapsing production levels.

At the center of the scheme, prosecutors contend, was Krull, a German national with roots in Venezuela. He was arrested in July at Miami's airport on a criminal complaint naming him and seven other defendants, as well as nine unnamed conspirators, some of them former PDVSA officials. Krull later agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and was charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit money-laundering, for which he faces up to 10 years in prison.

According to court records, prosecutors arrested Krull on the basis of information from a confidential source who reached out in 2014 offering to surrender his take from the money-laundering scheme. Over the next two years, the unnamed individual secretly recorded some 100 conversations with several conspirators, including Krull, who until June worked in Panama for Zurich-based private bank Julius Baer.

Krull is described in the criminal complaint as a "high-level" banker who managed the wealth of several Venezuelan officials and "kleptocrats." He also was referred to as the "personal banker" for "Conspirator 7," who is described as the owner of a Venezuelan TV network and billionaire member of the so-called "boliburgues" who made fortunes under the Bolivarian revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez.

The two people familiar with the case said Conspirator 7 is Raul Gorrin, who became president of Globovision shortly after he and others in 2013 purchased the popular network and softened its anti-government news coverage. Gorrin's Miami lawyer did not return an email and attempts to contact him at Globovision were unsuccessful.

In his plea deal signed Wednesday, Krull said that Conspirator 7 asked him in 2016 to help launder $600 million from fraudulent business transactions with PDVSA. Later, he appealed to him for an "urgent solution" to move an additional $200 million held in a European bank on behalf of other unnamed individuals. Krull said he joined the conspiracy after being introduced directly to Los Chamos at the offices of Conspirator 7.

Krull said in the plea deal that it was explained to him how Los Chamos helped Conspirator 7 "solve issues with Venezuelan Official 2 by intervening with their mother, the wife of Venezuelan Official 2."

Krull's lawyer had no comment. Prosecutors in Miami did not return a phone call seeking comment. Julius Baer, which was not named in the U.S. complaint, said it fully cooperates with authorities but that it could not comment on potential client relationships.</s>Disclaimer: The opinions expressed belong to our diverse range of talented writers, and don’t represent the views of Wessex Scene as a whole.

Venezuela is no stranger to turbulent political events, but things took a dramatic turn last week as President Nicolas Maduro survived an assassination attempt. The attack marks yet another low point in the relationship between Maduro’s ruling United Socialist Party and those who oppose his government.

President Maduro was speaking at a parade in Caracas when the attempted assassination occurred. The event, celebrating 81 years of Venezuela’s national guard, was suddenly interrupted as two drones armed with explosives were launched according to Venezuela’s interior minister Nestor Reverol.

In the aftermath of the attack, government security services can be seen shielding the president, who remained unharmed. He later addressed the nation, stating ‘a flying object exploded near me, a big explosion. Seconds later there was a second explosion’. He went on to say:

In the following days, the government of Venezuela claims to have detained six people involved. They believe the assassination had been planned with the assistance of officials from Colombia and the United States – both have frosty relationships with Caracas.

Those who oppose the government have criticised the increasingly authoritarian nature of the state, as exemplified by Maduro’s re-election last year. The United States condemned the vote, as a ‘sham’ whilst across the pond, European Union criticism was headed by Spain. Criticism of Venezuela has also come from Amnesty International, for political repression and an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Much of the criticism of the government of Venezuela is fair and comes from a position of good will. Anybody with a heart will no doubt empathise with the civilians who are suffering from the crisis. However, we must be just as critical of those who oppose President Maduro and realise that Venezuela will not be saved by simply removing the President or his party. This very narrative has been repeated countless times by both Western governments and media – remove the brutal strongman at the top, replace them with the opposition and everything will be fine. Iraq and Libya prove the complexity of this, and all those who have lost their lives in the aftermath of those conflicts, attest that the deeply multifaceted problems faced in those countries have not vanished with said dictators.

To start with, the opposition of Venezuela’s persistent attempts to revise history is at best extremely disingenuous and at worse flat out lying. Although the government of Venezuela does not have a human rights record to be proud of (and to be fair, no country does) it is unfair to pin this entirely on the current socialist government. If you listened to much of the mainstream reports, it is unsurprising to assume this. However, the history of human rights abuses by the state of Venezuela transcends ideology and stretches back over a century. Perhaps the most famous of these in the West occurred during the Caracazo, a wave of protests in 1989 where state security forces violently repressed those who opposed the government’s neoliberal reforms. While this does not excuse any existing human rights abuses in the country, it certainly contextualises them.

There’s no reason to believe that the opposition – which is extremely violent itself – would not continue in this tradition and repress their own political opponents. It would be easy to conclude that the situation in Venezuela was simple, that of a brutal, repressive dictatorship which is solely responsible for the violence against its people. In reality, the opposition in Venezuela are violent themselves and often go far beyond what would be considered legitimate resistance. Furthermore, a recent report suggested that in the 2017 clashes, up to half of those killed were due to actions directed by the official opposition and reports from 2016 suggest that the lawlessness created in violent tactics of the opposition, has resulted in three people being lynched every day. In addition to this direct action, the rhetoric is also extremely concerning. Henrique Capriles, a prominent opposition leader called for the army to revolt against the government.

The opposition also plays a role in exacerbating the economic crisis with the aim of forcing regime change. Although it’d be wrong to neglect the role the government has played in the crisis, it’d be equally damaging to gloss over the role the opposition has played. A key example of this is the food hoarding in the country.

In recent years, images of poor Venezuelans (note that they are more likely to support the regime than any other demographic) scavenging for scarce supplies have been plastered all over the media. Whilst this occurs, the owners of the institutions which transport food from farm to fork, processing plants, transport companies, and supermarkets, who often have links to the opposition, have been hoarding food and in some instances selling it to private companies in Colombia. They then inflate the price and sell it to Venezuelans near the border. It is important to reiterate here that the government of Maduro isn’t perfect, and if you view him as a repressor of human rights then you must view the opposition in a similar vein, encouraging violence and lawlessness in order to further their own political ambitions, all the while profiteering off human suffering.

Finally, it’s important to remember that in the twenty years since the socialist government took power, there have been very real improvements to the lives of many Venezuelans, most prominently bringing down unemployment, increasing the material wealth of the poorest Venezuelans, investment in health and education and a rapid increase in participation of the democratic process. These are at risk of being lost if the opposition got into government. Yes, it’s worth noting that they’re arguably being lost and some have been lost in the recent violence, but as previously stated the opposition has played a key role in causing the crisis.

Your opinion on the crisis in Venezuela is likely to be consistent with your wider political ideology. I cannot unquestionably praise Venezuela as the beacon of hope in a bleak world, and it’s certainly not my place to lecture those who’ve suffered at the hands of a government which is partly responsible for the crisis engulfing the country. However, what I can do is attempt to dispel the narrative that the crisis is entirely the result of the government and President Maduro, that the crisis can be solved by replacing the government with the opposition, or that the opposition is not partly responsible for the crisis, to begin with. As the people of Libya may tell you, the grass isn’t always greener.
A United States court case gains new evidence and a guilty plea in relation to investigations of corruption and money laundering in Venezuela, adding a group who are suspected to be relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to the list of suspected accomplices.