The 15th Civil Court with jurisdiction over Asset Forfeiture declared extinguished the ownership that the brothers Rafael Guillermo and Roger Vicente Rodríguez Perdomo had over a set of movable and immovable property, which now pass into the hands of the Venezuelan State, according to judicial sources.
The decision was announced this Wednesday afternoon at the headquarters of the aforementioned court located in the Centro Financiero Latino, Avenida Urdaneta, Caracas, after completing the trial for forfeiture of domain that began at the beginning of this year.
This trial is the first to be carried out after the Organic Law of Domain Forfeiture was approved, published in the extraordinary Official Gazette 6,745 of April 28, 2023.
The purpose of this law is for the State to recover assets “originated by illicit activities.” Precisely, the Perdomo brothers are among the list of 61 detainees allegedly involved in the PDVSA-Cripto corruption scheme, which involved the assignment of oil tankers to businessmen and public officials who marketed them without delivering the fruits of those sales to the state company, according to what was stated by the Public Ministry.
In response to this circumstance, the Public Ministry requested to declare the extinction of the ownership that the Perdomo brothers have over certain assets, which they suspect were obtained with money from illicit operations detected in PDVSA. The Perdomo brothers denied such accusation and provided documents on the origin of the assets.
Such request from the Public Ministry was debated during a aforementioned trial before the Fifteenth Court of First Instance in Civil, Commercial, Traffic and Maritime Matters of the Judicial District of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas with National jurisdiction in Domain Forfeiture by Judge José Suárez .
In its approach, the Public Ministry requested that the assets of third parties not be affected, a request that was denied by the aforementioned court, the source explained.
By declaring the extinction of ownership of the assets of the Perdomo brothers, the court attributed them to the State of Venezuela. Consequently, he ordered its delivery, taking into account the catalog of properties recorded in the document presented to the court by the Public Ministry.
But the ruling clarifies that if other assets are found (not specified in the aforementioned catalog), the court authorizes the National Service for Seized Assets, “to consider extinguishing them and the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic will be notified.” .
Among the assets that passed to the State as a result of that decision are the Sena tower, Camponorte building, Country Club apartment, PH Valle Arriba, land on Madrid Las Mercedes street, Torre Europa, office in the Galipán Business Center, office in Torre La Castellana , Torre Guayana, offices in Torre BNC, Torre SMA and Torre Empresarial JL, among others.
On December 12, the Executive Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, decreed the appointment of Kenny Antonio Díaz Rosario as general director of the Recovered Assets Service, the entity in charge of managing properties whose extinction of ownership is declared by a court specialized in that matter.
Abel Ernesto Durán Gómez, Larry Devoe, Marcos Marfred Seijas and Gladys Patricia Gómez Méndez were also appointed as main directors of the Board of Directors of the Recovered Property Service, according to the decree.
