More than 170 people, the vast majority oil workers, have been in prison since 2024 accused of smuggling, sabotage and corruption, charges that their relatives dismissed on Wednesday, while demanding their freedom within the amnesty for political prisoners still under discussion.
The families denounce that the case they called “Pdvsa Obrero” includes workers from Petróleos de Venezuela, police agents and even people with no direct relationship with the state company. There are 173, all arrested in various procedures.
The authorities never made an official statement.
The oil industry is the country’s main industry, hit hard after years of corruption, disinvestment and mismanagement.
It is also sensitive to the authorities, who, for example, consider all PDVSA facilities as a “security zone.”
They demand freedom for oil workers
“They are not terrorists, they are professionals!” the relatives shouted at a press conference in Caracas.
The center of the “Pdvsa Obrero” is a ghost ship supposedly used for gasoline smuggling off the coast of the state of Anzoátegui (east). A hundred fell behind bars in this specific case.
The more than 170 have been presented before courts with terrorism jurisdiction and accused, among others, of smuggling and trafficking of strategic materials, according to a document prepared by their own relatives sent to the president of the National Assembly.
Parliament plans to resume discussion on Thursday of a general amnesty law promoted by President Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power after a US incursion that ended with the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3.
The relatives proposed that they be granted conditional release until the law is approved.
“This case is void from the beginning because all constitutional guarantees and rights were violated. We are in the presence of a political case due to the disproportionate application of the law,” said Zimarú Fuentes, lawyer and relative of one of the detainees.
Among the “Pdvsa Obrero” cases, one group was accused of “contaminating” gasoline at the El Palito refinery (Carabobo, north-central) and another of allegedly damaging a valve to load fuel into a tanker. There were three executives who have already been released.
Relatives also reported torture and humiliation in prisons.
“They were physically and psychologically mistreated, white torture,” Katherine Pino, 24, sister of an imprisoned worker, told AFP. “My brother was tortured with a pipe in the tailbone.”
The NGO Foro Penal counts more than 600 people detained for political reasons in the country, a part of which belongs to “Pdvsa Obrero.”
