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Javier Alvarado Ochoa arrested on corruption charges

Great news this morning out of Spain: Javier Alvarado Ochoa, former chief of CORPOELEC and BARIVEN, godfather of Derwick Associates in granting no-bid contracts worth hundreds of millions and partner in crime of Rafael Ramirez and Nervis Villalobos, got arrested yesterday in Madrid on corruption and bribe payment charges. Alvarado was one of the principal architects of a monumental graft scheme currently being probed by prosecutors in Andorra, Spain, Portugal and the U.S. Just in BARIVEN, Alvarado managed a yearly procurement budget of $7 billion.

Alvarado had been living in Austria and Spain, a country that recently granted him citizenship. This could've probably been a calculated move to avoid extradition to the U.S., something other utterly corrupt chavistas arrested in Spain have managed to do.

Alvarado and Villalobos were charged by Judge Yesenia Maza Rojas in a Caracas court with misapproriation, criminal association and money laundering in April 2015. In July 2016 a request to bring the case to the criminal chamber of Venezuela's Supreme Court was filed and dealt with Maikel Moreno, who rejected the request considering the case "did not affect public order", and thus did not merit Supreme Court's review. Luisa Ortega Diaz, then Venezuela's Attorney General, ensured Villalobos and Alvarado case was sent to oblivion.

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