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How banks helped Venezuela’s ‘boligarchs’ extract billions

By Sasha Chavkin and Patricia Marcano, ICIJ, 21 September 2020 ICIJ — On a rusty gas stove in Selena Ramirez’s apartment, a small flame was glowing. Ramirez, 69, shares the apartment with her daughter and 11-year-old grandson. It is on the ground floor of a government housing complex in San Francisco… Read More

FinCEN Files: Dublin business features in leak of US treasury documents

An unprecedented glimpse into the staggering amounts of suspect money that flow through the international banking system is revealed in leaked files from an agency of the US Department of the Treasury that have been seen by The Irish Times. The files show that the world’s largest banks play a… Read More

Court unfreezes accounts of Mexican firm sanctioned by U.S.

A Mexican court has unfrozen the bank accounts of a local company blacklisted by the United States for trading in oil with Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA despite U.S. sanctions, Mexico’s anti-money laundering unit said on Saturday. In a statement, Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) said it disagreed with the… Read More

18th September 2020

US moves to seize $330m of alleged 1MDB assets held by UK law firm

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has moved to seize $330m (£256m) held in the bank account of a major London law firm which prosecutors allege is derived from the proceeds of one of the world’s largest financial frauds. The DoJ has filed civil forfeiture proceedings against funds… Read More

16th September 2020

Miami judge declares ownership fight over $1 million super-yacht a ‘mess’

A sleek blue-and-white yacht worth $1 million has been moved from a dock on the Miami River to a marina in Aventura, but a legal dispute over the actual owner of the Italian-made vessel is still up in the air. A Miami federal judge weighed in on the fate of… Read More

8th September 2020

Switzerland’s PDVSA rinsing problem

Swiss banks first surfaced as handlers of illicit Venezuelan oil money in 2016, when U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara sought records from more than 18 of them on of bribery at PDVSA, a state-owned oil and natural gas company. Precisely two weeks later, Switzerland’s financial regulator built its annual meeting… Read More

4th September 2020

Sophisticated schemes revealed in Costa Rica gold ring

By Zachary Goodwin, InSight Crime, 2 September 2020 InSight Crime – Raids across Costa Rica have exposed a web of front companies filtering illegally mined gold to the United States, in the kind of multimillion-dollar laundering scheme not typically associated with the Central American country. In late August, Costa… Read More

3rd September 2020

Venezuelan charged in Miami money laundering case gunned down by motorcycle assassin

A Venezuelan businessman charged in Miami with laundering millions of dollars from oil contracts was gunned down Tuesday by a motorcycle assassin in Venezuela, according to authorities. Leonardo Santilli died from several gunshot wounds in what police described as a possible professional hit, authorities said. According to press reports, the… Read More

2nd September 2020

Ex-Venezuela official flees to aid U.S. in corruption probe

A former Venezuelan oil official fled the country and is talking to U.S. authorities about aiding their investigation of a high-level corruption scheme that helped plunge the oil-rich nation into an economic meltdown. Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui, a onetime legal counsel to the country’s powerful oil ministry, will appear in a… Read More

21st August 2020

Guilty Plea Entered in PdVSA Corruption Investigation

A former procurement officer at a Petróleos de Venezuela SA subsidiary has pleaded guilty to an alleged role in a bribery scheme and a former Citgo manager has been indicted on money-laundering charges in the latest developments in a sprawling U.S. probe into alleged corruption at Venezuela’s state-owned energy company. Read More

10th August 2020

UBS severs ties with some wealthy Venezuelans amid sanctions

UBS Group AG is severing ties with some Venezuelan clients it serves from the U.S. as the Trump administration tightens sanctions on a country that’s mired in a power struggle. The decision affects a number of accounts with links to Venezuela’s government or to Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the… Read More

4th August 2020

Swiss bankers and millions in gold tied to Hugo Chávez’s former nurse

AP — It was 2014 and Venezuela’s former treasurer Claudia Díaz was looking for a safe haven to store the unexplained wealth she had accumulated over the years. Then-president Hugo Chávez, who she once served as a nurse, had recently died and with the election of Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s… Read More

4th August 2020

Tehran busts sanctions to set up shop in Venezuela

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s army, is believed to be behind the opening of a superstore in Venezuela in the latest attempt to defy American-led sanctions. The Caracas branch of Megasis was officially opened last week by the Iranian ambassador and the Venezuelan vice-president. The… Read More

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How banks helped Venezuela’s ‘boligarchs’ extract billions

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