UPDATED 22:19 | The Chinese virus must be affecting Reuters' editorial desks in Brazil and Mexico. Check out the latest headline "Mexico's Libre Abordo announces bankruptcy, termination of swap with Venezuela", reported by "...Ana Isabel Martinez, writing by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Dan Flynn and Lisa Shumaker." Flynn and Shumaker describe themselves as editors. I've got news for Martinez, Parraga, Flynn and Shumaker: drug cartels don't go bankrupt.
The fact that Reuters' editors rushed to print whatever press release they got from Alex Saab, without first qualifying parties involved or questioning their claims, shows the kind of "journalism" that allegedly serious and reputed organisations produce nowadays.
UPDATED 22:19: In case there was any doubt as to just how baseless the whole "bankruptcy" of Libre Abordo is, Venezuela's Foreign Ministry has just announced that it will take Libre Abordo's "bankruptcy" case to the International Criminal Court. Reuters did not see fit to question Saab's mouthpieces, so we did:
Questions re Libre Abordo’s ‘bankruptcy’:
1- when was bankruptcy filed?
2- where, exactly, was bankruptcy filed?
3- when was last Schlager cargo lifted?
4- how long has Libre Abordo carried that ‘90 million’ debt?
5- who funded Libre Abordo’s ops?
6- who called in payment? ? https://t.co/Z7OG7F2rXI— Alek Boyd (@infodi0) June 1, 2020
Taking on the defence -before the International Criminal Court- of a totally dodgy Mexican shell by Venezuela is not only unprecedented, but almost certainly outside that court's jurisdiction. That is the pull of Alex Saab with the Maduro regime though: a shell of his declares itself bankrupt to the press, without providing anything in the way of details of related administrative process, next thing you know Venezuela takes to present its "bankruptcy" case to an international tribunal dealing with genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
We wonder, what the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's position is, if any, on this affair. After all Libre Abordo and affiliate Schlager claim to be Mexican concerns, established in 2010, with demonstrable track record... Wayback Machine, however, has a different story. It has only two captures of libreabordomexico.com's website, in April and May 2020. No previous record can exist, for this company "established in 2010" only registered its domain on December 12, 2019.