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Back in late 2012, when I wrote my first post about Derwick Associates and got interested in their activities, I remember having done a WHOIS search on their domain name derwickassociates.com. The site appeared to have have been registered by Derwick Associates de Venezuela, using 17121 Collins Avenue, Apt. 3305, Sunny Isles Beach, 33160 in Miami, which is the address of Jade Ocean, a high-end, luxury building. In the following days, I remember having seen frequent visits to the blog from ISP Fortune International 17121 Collins, presumably the company that provides internet services to Jade Ocean residents, and even tweeted a welcome note to Derwick readers. Sometime after I went to this site, to check who owned Apt. 3305 at Jade Ocean, and things got even more interesting.
As Miami-Dade property records show, the flat was purchased in June 2010 for $1.3 million by Logistic Asset Management, a corporation registered in Nevis. Jade Ocean has some 257 residential units. It was truly interesting to see, for instance, that Leonardo Gonzalez Dellan paid $2.15 million to an Argentinean businessman for an apartment in that building. Venezuela observers may remember Gonzalez Dellan from his days as head of State-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela (BIV). It would be illuminating to hear Gonzalez Dellan explain how after only two years (2002-2004) at the bank (his last known job apparently), he can manage to live a sybarite life and afford that kind of holiday properties. But I'm digressing.
It would be a while until I got to the next step, which was of course to check with Nevis authorities the parties / owners behind Logistic Asset Management, and then, surprise, surprise! Derwick's no. 2, Pedro Trebbau Lopez, turned out to be Mr. Logistic Asset Management.
In a conversation with legendary Venezuelan journo Nelson Bocaranda, he told me he had heard that the Derwick bolichicos had purchased an entire luxury building in Miami, though Logistic Asset Management had purchased only one unit in Jade Ocean. Did Derwick own any more?
ImportGenius to the rescue. A search for Alejandro Betancourt returns one result, an import of a luxury glass table from Italy. Delivery address: 17121 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach. Was Betancourt gifting a fancy table to his associate, or was this for Betancourt's own apartment at Jade Ocean? The clue would come from Miami-Dade's property register. Trebbau's Logistic Asset Management had acquired unit 3305 on June 14, 2010. That very same day, unit 3405 was acquired for another $1.3 million by Agency Partners Corp, another Nevis-registered corporation.
Would it be wild to wager a $100 bet that Agency Partners Corp is yet another front in Alejandro Betancourt's property portfolio, one that includes Aristotle Onassis former penthouse in New York [link], a 1,400-hectare hunting estate just outside Madrid [link], and another rather luxurious flat in the heart of the Spanish capital [link]?
The Derwick boys aren't in the wealth-creation league of Onassis-type of entrepreneurs: they're simply laundering proceeds from ill gotten contracts their school chums got for them thanks to chavismo's rampant corruption and nepotism.
The City of Miami recently declared Raul Gorrin -Boligarch owner of TV channel Globovision- persona non grata, after reports have surfaced about his property purchases in Cocoplum. U.S. authorities would do well in checking backgrounds of property owners at Jade Ocean...
