The Swiss authorities confirmed to the National Court that the family of the former Spanish ambassador to Venezuela Raúl Morodo has million-dollar bank accounts in that country. The diplomat, his son and his daughter-in-law are being investigated for the alleged collection of 4.5 million euros from Pdvsa through alleged false legal advice contracts signed with Pdvsa between 2012 and 2015
The Spanish National Court began the preliminary procedures to bring to trial the former Spanish ambassador to Venezuela Raúl Morodo, his son Alejo and his daughter-in-law Ana Catarina Varandas for laundering funds from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
The decision was adopted by the magistrate of this court Alejandro Abascal, at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, according to the judge in a car to which the news agency had access. EFE.
This case investigates the alleged collection of 4.5 million euros from PDVSA by Alejo Morodo through alleged false legal advice contracts signed with PDVSA between 2012 and 2015, when his father was no longer in charge of the embassy in Venezuela.
The money was allegedly laundered later through a complex network of companies created by the son and other investigated, including the former ambassador’s daughter-in-law, and two Venezuelan partners. One of them, Juan Carlos Márquez, committed suicide shortly after giving a statement on these events.
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This investigation was included in the “Venezuelan case”, but now Raúl Morodo, who served as Spain’s ambassador during the government of the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-2011), his son and daughter-in-law will be tried in a separate room.
In the investigations, the order presented by the Spanish National Court exposes, it is evident that within the facts investigated the two cases “although they maintain initial connection, they are perfectly differentiated and endowed with their own elements that allow and advise their separate prosecution”.
This, as explained, is due “not only because the facts and the people investigated in each of them are different, but also because of the different procedural state in which they are.”
Switzerland confirms millionaire Morodo accounts
The Swiss authorities confirmed to the National Court that the family of the former Spanish ambassador to Venezuela Raúl Morodo has million-dollar bank accounts in that country.
Judge Santiago Pedraz sent a letter rogatory to Switzerland (and others to Panama and Portugal) requesting information on whether Morodo, his son Alejo, and their wives, among others involved, have accounts in that country. A preview of the rogatory commission reveals that there are and that they have been active for years.
The Spanish justice system is studying requesting more exhaustive information on the accounts from Switzerland and is awaiting documentation and extracts requested from a dozen banking entities, registries and notaries in Panama, Switzerland, Portugal and Spain.
The network investigated by the judge and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Ana Cuenca has created a vast real estate estate acquired in Spain with illicit money coming mostly from the oil company PDVSA. Morodo father did not directly receive money in his accounts, but there are transfers that add up to 634,000 euros collected in checks and from his son Alejo’s accounts that are directly fed with funds from the oil company.
With information from The country
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