Versión Español
Spanish – Similar to the gold reserves, the Nicolás Maduro regime has attempted to move Venezuelan funds deposited abroad and appropriate them.
Enrique Castells, appointed by the interim government of Juan Guaidó to manage Venezuela’s mineral resources, revealed that Maduro tried to take 25 million euros of funds from the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) in Spain to Russia.
El Dr Enrique Castells Presidente de #CVG, @CVGAdHoc denuncia al regimen de #Maduro, quien con documentos falsos, intento retirar fondos de las cuentas en España. @AsambleaVE@jguaido @maibortpetit @CriptoLaborales @USAenEspanol@carlosvecchiohttps://t.co/Nu2xTtNjP7 pic.twitter.com/ZvsVcJUYLz
— Angel Brito (@albrito28) July 8, 2020
Castells explained that men designated by Maduro “tried to take the money to Russia with false documents.”
Meanwhile, the interim government is struggling to recover the 28 million USD frozen in three banks in Spain, which Maduro tried to mobilize.
This is not the first time that tyranny has attempted to move Venezuelan resources abroad. In fact, the regime also tried to move the gold reserves at the Bank of England but was prevented from doing so because Maduro was not recognized as a legitimate president.
Last week, the legitimate government of Juan Guaidó won a trial against Maduro in London and took away control of two billion dollars. The lawsuit began because the regime wanted to take control of the money and decided to sue the Bank of England to that end.
The gold reserves kept in the Central Bank of Venezuela have been disappearing because Maduro has used them to stay in power. The regime has managed to import food and even gasoline by paying with Venezuelan gold and violating the country’s constitution. The same has been done with the country’s funds deposited abroad.
According to estimates by the interim government, Venezuelan assets worth about five billion dollars are blocked abroad and could be recovered.
“There may be some five billion dollars in Europe, with approximately three billion in gold in England,” Jose Ignacio Hernandez, who until a few weeks ago served as Special Prosecutor to interim President Guaidó, told PanAm Post.
Besides the trials in Europe to take away Maduro’s control of the assets, Hernandez said that according to his estimates, Chavismo had stolen more than 200 billion dollars: “There is no exact estimate of the assets diverted by corruption, according to estimates by the National Assembly and some experts, the amount could be between 200 and 400 billion dollars.”
It’s an incomparable figure. Never before has there been a case of asset recovery from corruption of this magnitude. But the figure is not inflated if you consider that Chavismo’s oil tax revenue was a trillion dollars, plus or minus.
Hernandez revealed that in the United States, specifically in Florida, the trial of Abraham Ortega is underway. Ortega was exempted from Petróleos de Venezuela, and the interim government hopes to recover some 20 million dollars from the corruption of Chavismo.
