2024-04-18 21:40:30
A soldier named in a plot of corruption of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in the midst of which he was arrested Tareck El Aissamidied in police custody, the Prosecutor’s Office reported this Wednesday (04/17/2024).
“At the site it was possible to verify that the deceased citizen responded to the name of Marino José Lugo Aguilar. The evidence collected by the specialists preliminarily establishes that the death occurred due to hanging,” said the Public Ministry in X (previously Twitter). This is the third person arrested in this case to die in custody. In the first cases, The Prosecutor’s Office spoke of “suicide”.
The colonel would be charged with the crimes of “appropriation or distraction of public assets; conspiracy to enter into contracts; evasion of procedures, controls or restrictions in bidding; money laundering, treason and association,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.
Lugo Aguilar worked in the marketing area of PDVSA and was detained and interrogated by the Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), according to the local press, in the midst of the investigations carried out by the Public Ministry for a millionaire embezzlement in PDVSA that, according to independent estimates , placed at 17,000 million dollars.
Nearly 60 people have been arrested since March 2023 when the Prosecutor’s Office announced the beginning of the investigation, which joins another 25 opened since 2017 for corruption in the state oil company. There are 17 other arrest warrants issued.
Former Oil Minister El Aissami – a former confidant of President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez who was sanctioned by the United States for drug trafficking accusations – was arrested on April 9 for irregularities in the sale of crude oil through crypto assets. El Aissami had resigned in March 2023 following the scandal and disappeared from public life until his arrest.
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