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A major investigation into corruption at state oil company PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela) arrested 42 businessmen and employees of the public company. The operation by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, which began on March 17, is being called an “anti-corruption crusade” and has already led to the departure of the Minister of Petroleum.
Among the arrested employees are several collaborators of the former Minister of Petroleum, Tareck El Aissami, as well as members of the Department of Commerce and Supply at PDVSA and the Intendency of Digital Mining.
The officials are accused of “appropriation or embezzlement of public assets, influence peddling, money laundering and criminal association, and treason to the fatherland,” said attorney general Tarek William Saab.
There are also more than a dozen businessmen arrested, one of them detained in the Dominican Republic while trying to flee.
The accused can be sentenced to sentences of up to 30 years in prison, the maximum prison time in Venezuela, according to the attorney general.
Resignation of Chavista Minister
The first arrests took place on March 17 and accumulated over the following days in a police operation that turned into a political crisis.
On March 21, the Minister of Petroleum, Tareck El Aissami, an early Chavista and former Venezuelan vice president, resigned from his post. “In view of the investigations into serious acts of corruption at PDVSA, I have taken the decision to tender my resignation to fully support this process,” he posted on social media.
The operation investigates the embezzlement of US$ 3 billion dollars (about R$ 15 billion) by the Venezuelan oil company, an amount disclosed by the local press, but which is not confirmed by the Public Ministry.
The information is viewed with suspicion by the opposition press. “We have no way of confirming these numbers,” comments Venezuelan journalist Cesar Batiz, in an interview with the newspaper The world.
For years, the Venezuelan government has not published information about its budget or the activities of PDVSA, the country’s main company, which has been the target of corruption allegations for decades.
This anti-corruption “crusade” at the oil company is not the first by the government of Nicolás Maduro. DSince 2017, Venezuela’s oil industry has been the target of numerous investigations that have resulted in the arrest of nearly 200 employees and two oil ministers, Eulogio del Pino and Nelson Martinez.
The timing, however, for the numerous arrests to be made seems to have a close relationship with the political timing, one year before a new presidential election. On all sides, the conversation that is heard the most is whether Maduro wanted to get rid of the “El Aissami clan” before the 2024 election, says the correspondent for the French newspaper.
(With agency information)