March 2019

Silvain Besson reported yesterday in the Tribune of Geneva that Helsinge -the shell controlled by Francisco Morillo, Leonardo Baquero and Daniel Lutz- has been charged by Geneva prosecutor Johan Droz with corruption, money laundering and data theft.

Depending on where people stand in the political sphere, there's never a shortage of villains. In the UK, at this point in time, there's almost universal consensus about number 10's current resident. The fact that a fanboy of Castro and Chavez stands across the aisle shows just how debased politics can become, even in very advanced democracies. What hope then, for a banana republic like Venezuela?

A PDVSA source recently shared some puzzling information about operations of Petrozamora, a joint venture between Corporación Venezolana de Petróleo (CVP) and Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V., an Amsterdam shell controlled by Boris Ivanov, Christophe Gerard, Francisco Convit and Orlando Alvarado.

Further to recent sanction to Evrofinance Mosnarbank by U.S. Treasury, PDVSA sources report of a scheme involving Petrozamora (see Gazprombank Latinamerica Ventures - GLV), PDVSA, Nynas, and VTB Bank (shareholder in Evrofinance). Petrozamora crude is lifted from Puerto Miranda (Maracaibo Lake) and sent onto Punto Fijo terminals where larger tanker ships bound to Nynäshamn refinery in Sweden load.

[UPDATED* PLEASE READ BELOW] On 3 January, Deacon Jorge Sonnante got in touch via DM. He sent me a link to a post about Pope Francis' alleged corruption, with a note asking whether I could help in making it viral. As a Venezuelan, I am naturally predisposed against authoritarianism, and in that regard Pope Francis is most certainly no John Paul II.

U.S. Treasury, bless them, issued another Venezuela-related sanction today against Evrofinance Mosnarbank. That's great news, cause Evrofinance is 49.9% owned by FONDEN, one of chavismo's favourite slush funds, from which billions have been misappropriated. Evrofinance is also interesting because other shareholders are Gazprombank, and VTB Bank, two Russian entities that had already been sanctioned under Ukraine-related Treasury santions against Putin's annexation of Crimea.

PDVSA US Litigation Trust, the farce brought by thug David Boies against Francisco Morillo, Helsinge, Trafigura, Vitol, Glencore et al was dismissed by Judge Darrin Gayles last Friday, for "lack of subject matter jurisdiction." The good thing is that Boies and his merry band of co-conspirators won't be able to steal 66% of whatever proceeds would've been obtained through that civil action in Florida.

Hugo Chavez used to rule through TV screens. Never one for orthodoxy, the putschist's command of telecasts was legendary. He rose to power thanks to his "por ahora" speech in 1992, calling rebel armed forces to surrender, and once in power, he commandeered airwaves like no one had ever done before, or since. Nicolas Maduro doesn't have that gift, his public addresses are very disagreable events. And then Venezuela has produced another first in Juan Guaidó: government by hashtag.