2023-06-30 02:13:00
Tareck El-Aissamiformer Minister of Petroleum of Venezuelaresigned on March 20 and Since then, his whereregardings are unknown. Previously, the businessman served as Minister of the Interior and Justice, and even had a brief career as vice president between 2017 and 2018. In social networks he defines himself as a “radically chavista” popular militant and his voluntary resignation coincided with the controversial anti-corruption operation that triggered to date 61 arrests and 2 deaths.
“By virtue of the investigations into serious acts of corruption, I have made the decision to present my resignation as Minister of Petroleum” Tareck announced through his networks on March 20.
According to calculations of Transparency Venezuelathe embezzlement for which he is in the sights of Justice would amount to regarding 16,600 million dollars.
Tareck El Aissamir. Photos: Twitter / @TareckPSUV
“Let’s go with everything, whoever falls falls!”ordered months ago the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in the midst of police operations that culminated in 61 detainees on corruption charges, including senior government officials.
At the moment, the Prosecutor’s Office did not rule on the content of the accusations once morest the former minister. In fact, the attorney general, Tarek William Saabevaded a question on the subject during a press conference offered on April 5, when he warned that he preferred “not to advance” opinions on “any name in particular”.
Both Nicolás Maduro and Saab and those who encouraged the anti-corruption cause remain silent following the disappearance of El Aissamiwho at the end of last year signed contracts with the American company Chevron.
Tareck El Aissamir and Nicolás Maduro.
Las first arrestsreported on March 19, targeted close collaborators of Tareck El Aissamipowerful Chavista leader and Minister of Oil until the scandal broke.
One of them, Antonio Pérez, vice president of the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA); another, Joselit Ramírez, superintendent of the entity that manages industry funds through crypto assets, key to circumvent US sanctions.
Hugo Cabezas, who was a close collaborator of the late former president Hugo Chávez, is also among those arrested, as well as the president of the corporation responsible for the exploitation of minerals such as iron, bauxite, gold and diamonds, Pedro Maldonado, and the head of the state Orinoco Steel Company (Sidor), Néstor Astudillo.
They reported 2 deaths among the 61 arrested following the ‘anti-corruption purge’
The Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, announced that one of those detained in the anti-corruption operations carried out in recent weeks died of “a terminal illness”the second to die of the 61 arrested.
“The Public Ministry reports the death of the citizen Juan Almeida who suffered -for a long time- from a terminal illness diagnosed as hepatic cirrhosisSaab wrote on Twitter at midnight on Monday.
“At the time of his death, he was at his residence: following being granted the humanitarian measure of house arrestby reason of being one of those investigated for the PDVSA/Crypto plot,” he added.
Almeida, whose age was not disclosed, was being held at his home in the city of Maracay, some 110 kilometers east of Caracas.
Venezuela requested the extradition of the PDVSA official named as “valijero” in the Antonini Wilson case
He is the second of those arrested in the framework of corruption schemes in state companies such as the PDVSA oil company that dies in custody of authorities. The Public Ministry is investigating, among other cases, the irregular handling of funds for operations linked to the oil industry carried out through crypto assets.
On April 20, Saab reported on the death of Leoner Azuajewho according to the prosecutor committed suicide in cell in which he was confined in the dungeons of the intelligence service in Caracas.
The police operations that began in March have focused on Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the heart of the battered Venezuelan economy, with 61 arrests and 172 raids according to a balance of the Public Ministry.
The Oil Minister, the powerful Chavista leader tareck He Aissamiresigned amid the scandal.
Analysts agree in considering these operations as “a purge” of the ruling Chavismo, while Saab denies political motivations.
Is it a political purge?
At the beginning of April, the political scientist Ana Milagros Parra assured the agency AFP that the operation in question “It’s a political purge”.
“And we must not see it as something extraordinary,” Parra added, alleging that it occurs due to “the need to eliminate or remove from circles of power people who in one way or another they pose a threat (to the government) or are not online“.
However, prosecutor Saab ruled out this hypothesis: “My God! Since when is corruption, embezzlement, a political fact? Where is the ideology there? Stealing is an ideology? No, boy!”.
Saab said his office led the investigation into 31 “corruption schemes” in the oil industry since 2017for which more than 250 former officials and financial operators were prosecuted.
“Within the government there are factions and those factions face each other,” said Benigno Alarcón, director of the Center for Political and Government Studies at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB).
Nicolas Maduro. Photo: Bloomberg
“When you see an opportunity to get an adversary or a faction out of the way, then you take it out because power is a zero-sum game,” he said.
El Aissami, according to Alarcón, was confronted with the group headed by the powerful Delcy brothers and Jorge Rodríguez, vice president of the country and president of Parliamentrespectively.
It is “brave” to attack corruption, explained Alberto Aranguibel, an analyst close to Chavismo in a press column, following rejecting the “perverse campaign” that places the entire State as “a single organ equally eaten away by the cancer of corruption.” .
Parra, however, insists that “corruption has been systematic and has been part of the nature of this government and the previous one with Hugo Chávez”.
Chavismo “did not have this type of epiphany that suddenly they go from being very corrupt to being very correct,” Alarcón illustrated.
Although that is the message that the propaganda apparatus is trying to sell, according to Parra: “an awakening of morale” that “is cleaning up its ranks.”
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