In 2019 and during the government of Donald Trump, the state-owned Minerven and its then president, Adrián Perdomo, were sanctioned for considering that illegal gold operations were being carried out. The former Colombian ambassador in Washington DC, Francisco Santos, assured that the US eliminated the former Venezuelan official for having collaborated with that country’s justice
The United States Department of the Treasury eliminated this Thursday, March 30, the sanction imposed in 2019 against Adrián Antonio Perdomo Mata, who held the presidency of the state-owned Compañía General de Minería de Venezuela (Minerven), and who has been linked to the Colombian businessman Álex Saab, detained by the North American justice system.
According to the information, Perdomo Mata was removed from the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The measure comes days after the prosecutor appointed by the extinct constituent assembly, Tarek William Saab, reported on the arrests that occurred in a Police operation against Corruption, and after the investigations against PDVSA officials, a deputy and a mayor. .
On March 19, 2019, the administration of President Donald Trump sanctioned Minerven and its president, considering that illicit gold operations were propping up the administration of Nicolás Maduro.
“The extraction and subsequent sale of gold has been one of the most lucrative financial schemes of the Maduro regime in recent years, as hundreds of thousands of miners have extracted gold in dangerous and makeshift mines in southern Venezuela, all controlled by the Venezuelan military, which, in turn, corruptly charges criminal organizations for access. These miners and their communities are exposed to environmental abuses, since dangerous toxic elements such as mercury are used in the extraction process. In addition, violent crime, including homicides, has become increasingly frequent in these mining communities,” the Treasury Department announced at the time.
According to the former Colombian ambassador in Washington DC, Francisco Santos, the US assured that the sanction was removed from the former president of Minerven for having collaborated with the justice of that country, providing information on corrupt plots in the Venezuelan government.
“That they have removed the sanction from Adrián Perdomo Mata was not a favor from the US, it is because they collaborated with all the information they had,” said the diplomat through his account on Twitter.
Maduro appointed Adrián Perdomo as president of Minerven in July 2018 and one of his first decisions at the head of the state mining company was aimed at favoring the business of Colombian businessman Álex Saab, in the exchange of gold for food with Turkey, as revealed Armando.Info.
«His arrival in that position coincided with the rise of untimely exports of Venezuelan gold to new destinations, such as Turkey, to finance food imports. Behind these stealthy operations is the shadow of Alex Saab and Alvaro Pulido, the main beneficiaries of food sales for the Local Supply and Production Committee (Clap), and with whom Perdomo himself worked before Nicolás Maduro placed him at the helm. control of Venezuelan gold,” said the portal.
In 2012, Perdomo signed a contract with the disputed Global Construction Fund, a Saab company and its partner Pulido, and in 2015 he created the Colsaum company in Colombia in partnership with Carlos Lizcano Manrique, another of the partners of the Colombian businessman imprisoned in the US for money laundering.
*Read also: Corruption cases: how far do the investigations go in the courts and PDVSA?
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