The court of the Southern District of Texas, in the United States, is carrying out a process in which Nervis Villalobos is being investigated and has an arrest warrant since August 23, 2017, for bribing Venezuelan officials of the PDVSA subsidiary, Bariven
Words more words less, the judge of the National High Court that is carrying out the macro-case for PDVSA, which is investigating large-scale corruption in the state oil company, He stated that too much time had passed and that -to your knowledge- there was not enough evidence to prove wrongdoing that, in part, the justice of The United States had already confirmed.
Despite the magnitude of the decision made by Judge Tardón, the Spanish political and judicial scene did not flinch at the dismissal of Villalobos and his wife. The accusation and the dozens of pieces of evidence in the file had been provided by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Officewhich holds that the former Venezuelan official made false consulting contracts between an offshore company of his property and a company in the United States that involved 9 million dollars that entered bank accounts in Spain.
*Also read: Former Vice Minister Nervis Villalobos is saved “for now” from a process for corruption in Spain
But the resounding decision of the Spanish justice went unnoticed among lawyers and officials who regularly speak out in other corruption cases. Nobody expressed himself before the decision of Judge María Tardón in Madrid, the European capital that prides itself on being the most Latin city in Europe, whose businessmen maintain extensive commercial interests throughout Latin America.
“I have no idea about the subject, sorry.” “Wow, I didn’t know the sentence. I don’t think I can read it today,” were some of the responses Transparencia Venezuela received when it contacted well-known criminal lawyers who follow the PDVSA macro-case. Others, the vast majority, did not even answer the messages or the calls when this organization asked about Judge Tardón’s ruling.
There was no Spanish politician, jurist or activist who has raised his voice even in the face of the possibility that this first decision of the judge may represent a precedent for the defenses of the PDVSA macro-caseone of the most important judicial investigations against Venezuelan corruption.
“We find it very worrying that in Spain there is no analysis of that sentence. Despite the fact that Spain is considered the champion of Latin America due to its historical relations, since the corrupt acts of Villalobos have an impact on the Spanish financial system that has been used to launder assets and acquire goods with funds of illegal origin, we see that the consulted lawyers do not consider important a sentence that is crucial. The judge’s decision mocks the resources that are affecting the lives of Venezuelans, the arguments of that sentence are based on false premises, they are based on formalisms that distort reality and are superficial”, they affirm from Transparencia Venezuela.
“We notice a lack of interest and tolerance with great corruption, favoring impunity. Such a sentence would have generated in Venezuela the unanimous rejection of the independent media, lawyers and civil society organizations. Could it be that in Spain nobody is interested in the degree of corruption that exists in Venezuela and is projected to the first world? “, insists the organization.
The National Court is a key institution in the fight to recover part of the funds from corruption in Venezuela. In addition to the other pieces of the macro-case by PDVSA that have not yet been decided, there are several files that investigate embezzlement of billions of dollars that involve former Venezuelan officials, but also Spanish businessmen and officials who participated in that plot, such as the cases of Duro Felguera and Modoro among several others.
None of those files that are investigated in the National High Court is close to reaching a trial, according to what Transparency Venezuela was able to reconstruct, and the investigation of some of them has already been ongoing for five years. The Madrid courts also resolve extradition requests for former officials who are usually required to stand trial in the United States. The results have been uneven so far, with resounding cases such as that of Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, another notable example of impunity encouraged by the justice system.
The controversial dismissal
Judge Tardón made the decision despite the evidence presented by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which accused Villalobos, former Minister of Energy and Mines, a character who is involved in different cases of corruption both in Spain and in the United States.
The prosecutors reported in their accusation that the company Kingsway LDA, based on the Madeira Island of Portugal, signed on November 7, 2010 an apparent energy consultancy contract with the company Miami Equipment & Export, directed by the businessmen Luis Díaz and Luis Javier Diaz.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office indicated that Miami Equipment was dedicated to carrying out various engineering projects in the electrical sector as a supplier of goods and services for third parties, “although the contract does not specify which specific projects it refers to.” “In addition, it is indicated that Kingsway LDA was contracted to carry out engineering consulting services, establishing a commission in its favor of USD 9.4 million,” they added.
The accusation within this chapter was fully articulated by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Judge Tardón had accepted PDVSA as the plaintiff in the file, a company that, in evidence in more than 120 cases in the courts of 20 countries, indicates that a strong network of corruption is involved, that it created the conditions to promote and protect that corrupt network and that maintains the same structure and opaque and closed procedures. But the Venezuelan state company – obviously – did not accuse Villalobos or his wife.
The prosecutors followed the money route: they managed to identify that the Villalobos company deposited funds for USD 6.9 million into its account at the Bank of Madrid between October 2011 and June 2012. “There are no movements in the revised documentation that could indicate the existence of a provision of consulting services to other companies or expenses derived from work carried out, such as travel, hotel stays, office expenses, and that could link the company with a real activity, “they detailed. The accusers also added that the aforementioned bank account was fed during that period only from the funds sent by Miami Equipment.
The next step on the money trail leads to a mansion. Villalobos and his wife acquired with those funds a house in La Moraleja, a wealthy neighborhood in the north of Madrid, valued at more than one million euros, according to the public deed. The purchase of this mansion plus the opening of multiple judicial investigations for alleged corruption exposed Villalobos in the Spanish media.
“Judge Tardón’s argument is not complete, it is not true. The function of a judge is to do everything necessary to establish the truth in a process, and when all the effort is not made, where public funds are at stake, it seems that they act lightly. What those 9 million dollars could represent for Venezuelan children is not considered, ”they sentence from Transparency.
The sentence in the United States against Nervis Villalobos
Another decision that drew attention was the low evaluation that Judge Tardón gave to a conviction by the United States justice system that directly involves the Villalobos society, taking refuge in equivocal technicalities such as the typicity of the act in two different legislations.
Luis Díaz and Luis Javier Díaz were accused in the Court of the Southern District of New York for having conducted, managed and transferred money on behalf of others and in exchange for a commission, to accounts located and financial institutions in Spain and the United States, assigned to companies ghosts in Portugal and British Virgin Islands. The citizens, the indictment says, also transferred $300,000 to a Venezuelan government official who had an account in Panama.
Despite the fact that many of these indications coincide with the operation detailed above by the prosecutors, Tardón indicated that the sentence in the United States “does not question or refer at any time to a possible illicit origin of the transferred funds” investigated in Spain, as well as ” that they derive from corrupt conduct committed by officials or employees of the Venezuelan government”, a statement that ignores the elements contained in the investigation.
The court of the Southern District of Texas, in the United States, is carrying out a process in which Nervis Villalobos is being investigated and has an arrest warrant since August 23, 2017, for bribing Venezuelan officials from the PDVSA subsidiary, Bariven.
The former Venezuelan Vice Minister of Energy is accused of two crimes of money laundering and conspiracy to violate the law on corrupt practices abroad, which add up to a sentence of 45 years in prison. In 2019, the delivery of Villalobos to US authorities was revoked by decision of the second criminal section of the National Court.
“I want to defend myself in Spain before going to the United States”, Nervis Villalobos said to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in February 2019.
Read the full note by clicking here
Post Views:
39
