Latest

So the Department of Justice (DoJ) charged Raul Gorrin last night with money laundering. Readers of this site sort of knew that was coming. Alejandro Andrade, Claudia Diaz Guillen and Adrian Velazquez (both pending extradition to Venezuela from Spain), are co-conspirators, along Gabriel Arturo Jimenez Aray from Banco Peravia in the DR.

A source has told this site the U.S. Department of Justice is to unseal indicments, related to Alejandro Andrade's corruption racket when heading Venezuela's Banco del Tesoro. Up to nine people are said to be part of criminal probe about to be revealed. It goes back to the times of Leonardo Gonzalez Dellan, all the way to Andrade's multibillion dollar schemes with Raul Gorrin.

Global Witness, self styled protector of "human rights and the environment by fearlessly confronting corruption and challenging the systems that enable it", is silent on PDVSA. As in absolutely silent. A search for PDVSA in Global Witness site returns one (1) result. Since 1993, which is when Global Witness claims to have started, nothing has been done regarding PDVSA's corruption, one that can very easily engulf all other corruption campaigns Global Witness has ever done put together.

There's no rest for the wicked Rafael Ramirez. Beyond idiotic presidential aspirations that will never materialise, Ramirez is a hunted man. Add Portugal to U.S., Swiss, Andorra, Spanish and Venezuelan jurisdictions, where he remains a wanted man / person of interest. Many of his closest and most trusted partners-in-crime are in jail in some of those jurisdictions. The impending danger for Ramirez is that his lieutenants have already opened up.

A source has informed this site that Pedro Binaggia, banker to fugitive Francisco Convit in a $1.2 billion money laundering scheme centered at PDVSA, was instrumental -in bringing to Switzerland's bank EFG International- as much as $1.5 billion as part of a previous money laundering exercise, involving PDVSA, Rafael Ramirez, Juan Andres Wallis, Danilo Diazgranados, Nervis Villa

Yesterday afternoon documents were filed in the docket of PDVSA US Litigation Trust v Lukoil, Helsinge, Glencore, Trafigura et al. Judge Alicia M. Otazo-Reyes concluded that David Boies / PDVSA Litigation Trust had no standing, that Boies "failed to support that it holds a valid assignment from PDVSA", and that Litigation Trust's formation was invalid as per current Venezuelan law. Pretty damning stuff (see pdf below). That was to be expected, of course.

Bloomberg reported in late October that a sobbing Matthias Krull, the banker at the core of PDVSA's $1.2 billion money laundering scandal with Francisco Convit, allegedly told the court "I apologize for making a bad decision.