The former Venezuelan Vice Minister of Energy Development Javier Ochoa Alvarado asked the judge investigating the alleged looting of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to agree on the indictment of César Rincón, a former oil company official who was extradited from Spain and pleaded guilty in the United States. of participating in a scheme to pay bribes from US companies to secure energy contracts.
In a letter sent to the National Court, to which Europa Press had access, Alvarado’s defense requested that Rincón be summoned as an investigator because, according to what he says, he approved more than 615 million dollars in purchase orders between 2009 and 2015 It has also required the imputation of Silvestre Molero, president of PDVSA between 2009 and 2011 and commissioner of the Venezuelan state company. Neither figure in the oil company’s complaint that gave rise to the inquiries.
These petitions are part of the investigation carried out by the Central Court of Instruction Number 3, where a procedure is being followed against more than twenty people -both individuals and legal entities- for the alleged crimes of money laundering committed in Spanish territory, criminal organization for the commission of acts of corruption, fraud and other crimes committed abroad.
Alvarado insisted that Rincón should also be investigated because he held managerial positions in PDVSA and Bariven -one of the oil company’s subsidiaries- during the period that Judge María Tardón is investigating. According to her, she said, the “signature and intervention” of this former official “consists” in various operations that appear in the procedure.
In the case of Molero, he has defended it is a “logical request” to require his imputation because he was president of Bariven in part of the years included in the PDVSA complaint. Thus, Alvarado stressed that his appearance as an investigator is essential for a proper investigation. Within the framework of the brief, he has assured that as Molero “is currently the Commissioner of PDVSA” he may be summoned “through the procedural representation of the plaintiff PDVSA.” On the state company’s website he appears as the commissioner who signed the 2016 report, the last one published.
Possible “procedural fraud” by PDVSA
Alvarado’s defense also asked Judge Tardón to demand from the oil company “the original documents of each and every one of the documents contributed to the case”, both his initial complaint and those delivered later.
He also insisted that “all” the minutes of the Operations Committee and the PDVSA Board of Directors be required again from the state company, which were already requested in November 2020 and that the oil company has not yet provided.
In the rest of the 27 pages, Alvarado denounced the “possible falsity of several of the documents” delivered so far by the company in the context of the procedure.
The defense analyzed the documentation provided to the case and concluded that “perhaps we are facing a series of documents that could have been altered or falsified and, therefore, before a possible conduct incardinable within the crime of procedural fraud.”
Thus, he has made reference to specific cases in which the oil company would have provided documents that have “all the elements to be considered a gross falsification of the original.” he highlighted, among other details, possible alterations in signatures and letterheads.