The former Venezuelan vice minister Ochoa Alvarado asks the judge of the 'PDVSA case' to summon Maduro

He once again demands that the Venezuelan oil company deliver the original documentation on which he bases his complaint

MADRID, 3 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The former Vice Minister of Electrical Development of Venezuela Javier Ochoa Alvarado has asked the judge of the National Court María Tardón to request again from the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA the documentation that was requested in an order of November 17, 2020, having "doubts founded" on its authenticity, while requesting that a statement be taken from the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

In a letter from last Tuesday, to which Europa Press has had access, the defense of Ochoa Alvarado is interested in the head of the Central Investigating Court Number 3 that "take a statement, as witnesses or as investigated", Maduro and the former senior PDVSA official César Rincón.

In the case of Maduro, it points to "his condition as a director member of the Board of Directors of PDVSA during, at least, the year 2012 that is the object of this instruction, as a result of the content of the report of the UDEF - Economic Crime Unit and Prosecutor-- of June 20, 2022 that attributes responsibility" in the operations investigated.

Regarding Rincón, he recalls that "he held management positions at PDVSA and Bariven, during the entire period from 2009 to 2015, the subject of this instruction." In addition, he emphasizes that his signature appears in several of the purchase operations investigated for a value of more than 615 million dollars.

"Due to his level of financial authorization (between 4.6 and 9.3 million dollars), his intervention and authorization of operations was mandatory and the highest rank in the vast majority of the operations investigated," he stresses.

In addition, it once again asks Tardón to again require PDVSA to provide "all the minutes of the Operations Committee and the Board of Directors" that have been requested since that resolution of November 17, 2020.

Consequently, the former Venezuelan vice minister anticipates that "the appropriate legal warnings must be issued in the event that the complainant PDVSA persists in its rebellious will to fully comply with said order."

Likewise, it urges to obtain from PDVSA "the original documents of each and every one of the documents that it has contributed to the cause, both with its complaint and later."

And this in the face of "the well-founded doubt about the authenticity of said documents", for which he sees it necessary "to carry out the corresponding expert evidence that proves their authenticity or falsehood, where appropriate".

In this first separate piece of the 'PDVSA case', the judge investigates a lawsuit filed by the oil company itself against more than twenty people, including individuals and legal entities, for the alleged crimes of money laundering committed in Spanish territory and those prior to produce it as a criminal organization for the commission of acts of corruption, fraud and other crimes abroad.

The complaint is directed against Ochoa Alvarado; former PDVSA purchasing managers Alfonzo Eliézer Graviña and José Luis Ramos Castillo; the former purchasing manager at the Bariven subsidiary Christian Maldonado Barillas; Rafael Reiter Muñoz, considered the 'right hand' of former PDVSA president Rafael Ramírez; and against various members of the Rincón family and other oil businessmen.

Specifically, PDVSA points to the existence of a "criminal organization" made up of various people and a business network that would have carried out "various dissimulation and camouflage operations in order to defraud it and obtain an illicit benefit" that at least in part it would have been laundered in Spain through the purchase of real estate and the creation of companies.

In a second piece, the National Court investigated the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor in June 2017 for crimes of money laundering regarding "funds from an activity aimed at defrauding and/or appropriating the assets of PDVSA and other companies public companies of Venezuela", such as Corpoelec.

In this case, the complaint pointed to the former Vice Minister of Energy of Venezuela Nervis Villalobos, his wife Milagros Coromoto Torres and José Trinidad Márquez and Katilin Miguelina Mijares, as well as various legal entities linked to them. However, the National Court archived this line of investigation a few months ago when it did not find "sufficient indications of possible criminal activity."

In the third piece, Tardón focuses on the facts contained in an October 2018 report signed by the UDEF that indicates the existence of "a new operation suspected of money laundering" that would have been carried out by Villalobos to launder "funds of Venezuelan citizens from corruption and fraud" at PDVSA.

The operation, which would have benefited Villalobos, the former legal adviser to the Venezuelan Ministry of Petroleum Carmelo Urdaneta and the president of Globovisión Raúl Gorrín, would be based on an alleged investment by the former vice minister in a Maltese SICAV for which he would have received a partial refund through participations in a Spanish company with important real estate assets, Columbus One, and the assignment of a collection right over it for more than 6 million dollars.