Intelligence agencies carried out a special operation in Zulia, which involved the arrest of the president of the Criminal Judicial Circuit in that entity, lawyer Pedro Velasco, according to reports. José Gregorio Rondón, Superior Prosecutor of Zulia, was also captured, as were judges Maurelys Vilchez and Maryorie Plaza, the source said.
These arrests occur one month after the statements of the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, who denounced a corruption network in the Maracaibo mayor’s office, whose mayor Rafael Arturo Ramírez Colina (Primero Justicia) is currently deprived of liberty.
The resources of the aforementioned mayor’s office were allegedly used to finance the activities of Tomas Guanipa and Edmundo González, according to the investigations revealed by Cabello.
Due to these events, Pedro Guanipa, who served as director of the mayor’s office, brother of the political leaders Juan Pablo and Tomás Guanipa, is also detained. Juan Pablo is regional coordinator of Primero Justicia in Zulia.
Margarita Assenza (private secretary of the mayor’s office) and Diana Berrío (Human Resources), among others, are also behind bars.
Meanwhile, Juan Manuel Lara Villalobos, president of the Urban and Home Cleaning Institute, is wanted; Dave Henry Villalobos Ortega; Alberto Antonio Silva Paredes and Alberto Buchi.
They presume that some operators of the justice system in Zulia obstructed the arrest of people involved in that mafia that operated in the Maracaibo mayor’s office. In addition, the Superior Prosecutor’s Office was allegedly preparing an arrest warrant against six police officials who detained a former legislator allied with Edmundo González.
