Post a Comment Print Share on Facebook
Featured corrupción Crímenes Turquía Petróleo Feijóo

Charged members of a police network that offered services to former Venezuelan charges in exchange for information from Podemos

The judge summons a dozen people to testify for October 6 and agrees to the imputation of thirty companies.

- 5 reads.

Charged members of a police network that offered services to former Venezuelan charges in exchange for information from Podemos

The judge summons a dozen people to testify for October 6 and agrees to the imputation of thirty companies

MADRID, 9 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The head of the Investigating Court Number 29 of Madrid has agreed to call 13 alleged members of a network of police officers and lawyers who allegedly offered services to former Venezuelan Government officials -some of them investigated in the National High Court for money laundering crimes-- in exchange for information about Podemos.

In an order dated May 29, to which Europa Press has had access, Judge Cristina Díaz Márquez has set the interrogations for next October 6 - between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. - within the framework of the procedure that she directs for an alleged crime of fraud for at least a year. According to legal sources consulted by this agency, the main suspects were arrested and released last February.

The investigating magistrate has also agreed to charge thirty companies as legal persons. In this case, she has not yet established when the interrogations of the legal representatives of the investigated companies will take place.

According to the investigations carried out so far by the police authorities, the network is made up mainly of national and local police officers, lawyers and an ex-military officer.

The now accused would have approached several Venezuelans who were related to laundering activities "in order to request money from them in exchange for asserting their alleged ability to influence public bodies, such as the Executive Service for the Prevention of Money Laundering -Sepblac- - or the National Police itself", to "solve the problems" that would have to be investigated.

In addition to asking for money in exchange for said "influence", the members of the police network were also "interested" in being provided with "information on the political party Podemos and its possible links with Venezuela, among other information".

The Central Brigade for the Investigation of Money Laundering and Anti-Corruption assured in a report written in 2020 that the network received "millions of euros from Venezuelan citizens related to criminal activities." This information was provided to the judge of the National High Court who is investigating the alleged looting of funds from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and the alleged laundering of said money in Spain, since several of the former Venezuelan charges allegedly swindled appear as being investigated in the so-called 'PDVSA case'.

Sources close to the case have explained to this agency that the report is now part of the summary of the investigation that is being carried out in the Investigating Court Number 29 of Madrid against the police network for alleged crimes of fraud and/or extortion.

According to the report, to which Europa Press has also had access, the ways of receiving funds by those investigated "have been varied": from fictitious contracts and invoices, cash deliveries and the use of anonymous electronic means of payment. "They have had in common that these have been facilitated by the criminal organization and have served to transfer funds to Spain that had their origin in illicit activities," the agents said.

The police network would have contacted, among others, the former Vice Minister of Venezuela for Energy Nervis Villalobos; the former Vice Minister of Electrical Development Javier Ochoa Alvarado; the former treasurer of the South American country and nurse of the late president Hugo Chávez, Claudia Patricia Díaz Guillén; and the former head of Security of the Bolivarian president, Adrián José Velásquez Figueroa. All of them have been investigated for alleged money laundering crimes; the last two have been extradited to the United States.

Now, after almost a year of investigation, Judge Díaz Márquez has taken the step to question the alleged members of the fraud network. The first to appear will be the lawyer José Martín Aliste.

According to the report of the Anti-Money Laundering Brigade, the role played by Martín Aliste in the investigated plot consisted of "contacting Venezuelan citizens linked to money laundering operations to offer them his services" and "asserting his alleged ability to influence police officers and of institutions" so that they "achieve benefits such as the free opening of bank accounts in Spain or obtaining residence permits or even nationality". He would have received "no less" than 1.1 million euros.

On October 6, Daniel Renuncio Mateos, Madrid municipal police, will also testify. Then it will be the turn of his wife, Concepción Valenzuela Sanza; and Alberto Galán Fereres, an ex-Israeli military man - who in turn has Spanish nationality - "linked to the information services".

David Barriguete Mendo, inspector of the National Police, and Noelia Serrano Ramos are added to the list of those under investigation. Also cited are Martín Rodil Álvarez, an American lawyer; José Manuel Betanzos Ibarra, who -according to the police reports in the proceedings- is "a retired member of the Basque Autonomous Police stationed at the Secretary of State for Security at the time of the events"; and Guillermo Martínez Jiménez, Administration official.

The judge also intends to question Luis Fernando Vuteff García, a lawyer for several companies allegedly involved with the network; and Ignacio Sánchez Cumba, investigated allegedly linked to said merchants, and Ralph Steinmann, whom the authorities relate to one of the investigated companies. The last to testify will be José Vicente Amparan Croquer, investigated to whom documentation related to the case was found.

According to the Anti-Money Laundering Brigade, the suspected money laundering operations carried out in this case took place within the framework of "criminal organization structures" linked to Vuteff and Sánchez Cumba.

In the same report, the agents have assured that both would have provided a "money laundering service" --of the type called "compensation"-- which consisted of contacting "people who have cash that they need to bank through external channels to the legal circuit" and with "people who have the reverse need, that is, who have banked funds in accounts abroad and need to dispose of them in Spain through cash". According to the investigators, Vuteff and Sánchez Cumba would have made "multiple deliveries of cash" to former Venezuelan Vice Minister Nervis Villalobos.