Alejandro Betancourt, founder of the Derwick Energy Company, was arrested by the British police in London. Betancour is investigated for his alleged participation in a corruption scheme that sought to extract 1.2 billion dollars from Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)
Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, founder of the Derwick Energy Company, was arrested by the British police in London by order of the National Court and the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Spain, according to sources from The whistle.
Betancourt, investigated for his alleged participation in a corruption scheme that sought to extract $ 1.2 billion from Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), was released hours after his arrest after paying a bond.
The Spanish prosecutors who requested their capture are the same who achieved the arrest of the Argentine financial Luis Fernando Vuteff, son -in -law of the former mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, who declared himself guilty of the crime of conspiracy to wash money from PDVSA before the Southern District Court of Florida in May 2024.
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Betancourt is among those investigated in the Money Flight case that is followed in a Federal Court in Miami, for money laundering operations related to PDVSA, where Nicolás Maduro’s steps are also investigated.
Betancourt’s arrest occurs less than a month after the escape of his cousin and partner Francisco Convit, also indicated in the same plot of corruption, who escaped from the Sebin facilities in Plaza Venezuela and is allegedly in the United States, according to the note published by The whistle.
According to judicial documents, Convit and Betancourt would have received $ 272.5 million from the corruption scheme, of which part was delivered to the key witness of the federal case in Miami.
The corruption plot
Betancourt and CONVIT are part of the so -called “Bolichicos”, who founded Derwick Associates more than a decade ago and achieved millionaire contracts from the Venezuelan government for the construction of electricity generation plants. The company was accused of collecting overprices in their works.
With the income of these hiring, Betancourt expanded its operations to the United States and Europe, acquiring luxury properties, including a Penthouse in the Tower Olympic in Manhattan and a castle in Spain, according to records of the Federal Court of Miami.
The judicial documents indicate that Betancourt would be part of a network of entrepreneurs linked to Chavismo that in 2014 received hundreds of millions of dollars from PDVSA as payment for a loan that, in reality, would have been managed through a ghost company.
“The formal accusation of the Prosecutor’s Office alleges that the network used a ghost company to lend PDVSA in Bolívares the equivalent of 42 million dollars and then, in a few months, they were paid in euros, taking advantage of a privileged official exchange rate reserved for the friends of the regime,” says documents cited by the Miami Herald.
In this plot, others involved are also mentioned: Orlando Alvarado, former Derwick Finance; the businessman Raúl Gorrín, owner of Globovisión; And the stepsons of Nicolás Maduro, who would have received part of the 600 million dollars that PDVSA transferred to the Ghostly Rantor Capital company as part of the payment of the alleged loan.
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