Juan Manuel Almeida Morgado, one of the last seven detainees by the National Anti-Corruption Police (Pncc), tried to regain his freedom by displaying photos that he took posing with the minister, deputies and presidents of public institutions, according to judicial sources.
Almeida Morgado was arrested last Wednesday, April 5, on the occasion of a search of his residence located in the El Orticeño urbanization, Libertador municipality (Palo Negro), Aragua state.
In those first hours, Almeida Morgado took out his cell phone and began to show the officials a kind of digital album that he treasured with photos where he was observed with government personalities.
Failing to touch the hearts of the Anti-Corruption Police agents, Juan Manuel entered into a health situation that required his transfer to a clinic, the site where the 2nd Control Court of Caracas was established and held the presentation hearing in which was charged.
Together with Juan, his brothers Jorge Luis and Carlos Jesús Almeida Morgado were detained. They were also charged before the 2nd Control Court, according to images broadcast by VTV early this Friday.
The Almeida Morgados are linked to the “PDVSA-Cripto” plot, a file related to parallel operations to the oil industry to sell Venezuelan crude without the State receiving the foreign currency resulting from those transactions, which were carried out from the National Superintendence of Cryptoactives (Sunacrip), according to the explanation offered by the Public Ministry. Últimas Noticias obtained an interview with Alejandro Terán Martínez, who revealed that these parallel operations yielded 3 billion dollars during the last quarter of 2022.
Álvaro Enrique Pulido Vargas and Pedro Alejandro Herrera Araque, brother-in-law of former deputy Hugbel Roa, allegedly acted with the same modus operandi.
Herrera Araque is president of the drugstore Industria Médica de Occidente and Farmacia El Alba. For this reason, Herrera Araque had been managing a concession since last February to operate these two franchises in the Bosque Valle urbanization, where both he and Hugbel Roa reside, judicial sources said.
As for Pulido Vargas, a Colombian businessman captured in the Country Club urbanization in Caracas, he is also requested by the United States justice system due to his alleged involvement in money laundering and drug trafficking.
Here in Venezuela he is designated as a “financial operator linked to Hugbel Roa.”
The list of the seven defendants on Thursday night includes two officials from the Baruta municipality (Miranda) mayor’s office: Harold Rafael Sosa Padilla (director of Municipal Engineering) and Juan Carlos Posner Pimentel (Deputy director of the Mayor’s Office).
Both are allegedly related to the granting of permits for the construction of works that supposedly served to legitimize capital from “parallel operations” to PDVSA, according to investigations.
There are already 58 people charged in the framework of the Anti-Corruption Operation that includes five plots: PDVSA-Cripto, Corporación Venezolana de Guayana, Cartones de Venezuela, the Judiciary and mayoralties, according to the description made by the Public Ministry.
