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Francisco D'Agostino and Francisco Convit can easily be described as elite members of Venezuela's top corruption echelons. Treasury sanctioned D'Agostino "...for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy and materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of PdVSA" (read assisting Alex Saab). Fugitive Convit is at the core of two separate Department of Justice criminal money laundering probes: one for $1.2 billion, and another for $4+ billion. The Miami Herald is reporting that Herrera Velutini is D'Agostino's and Convit's banker.
Herrera Velutini himself is now a DoJ fugitive, part of a criminal probe into bribery that ended up with recent arrest of Wanda Vázquez Garced, Puerto Rico's former Governor. His problems started when Puerto Rico's financial regulator (OCIF) launched a probe into Bancredito, a bank owned by Herrera Velutini, whose hubris led him to launder money in America's jurisdiction, for DoJ wanted and Treasury sanctioned thugs, in the middle of a vast Treasury sanctions regime against Venezuela and PDVSA.
When OCIF -in light of origin of funds- started asking why suspicious activity reports (SARs) had not been duly filed by Bancredito with Treasury's FinCEN, Herrera Velutini's next best idea was not to immediately stop his bank's criminal activity, but to bribe the highest officer in Puerto Rico to try and install a former consultant of Bancredito at the top of OCIF.
No one can accuse Herrera Velutini of lacking audacity. His Venezuelan "business pedigree" however just might prove too costly, this time. Involved in a separate scandal in the UK (donating to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives over £500,000 and hiring CT Group to provide in-kind services to Vázquez Garced), wanted by DoJ, Herrera Velutini instructed his UK legal mouthpieces to claim innocence and deny all charges. While English lawyers and CT Group representatives issue various vacuous statements, the man in question not only resigned immediately as Bancredito's CEO, but "agreed" with OCIF to "voluntarily" close the bank and pay a $250,000 fine. Very innocent indeed.
OCIF's press release on the topic contains a startling claim regarding Herrera Velutini's operations, indicating that over $10 billion (not a typo) might have gone through Bancredito between October 2016 and December 2020. That, even for Venezuela, is a considerable amount. How much of it belongs to D'Agostino and Convit? How many other thugs used Herrera Velutini's Bancredito? Is the chavista regime itself a client?
This is the reason why no SARs were ever filed by Bancredito, which sources claim was also used as pay through for other Venezuelan banks to avoid Treasury sanctions. Herrera Velutini was never going to comply with existing legal requirements about his Venezuelan clients, or to demonstrate legitimate origin of their funds. Simply becasue he could not have. Now, in his attempt of getting away with, effectively, laundering as much as over $10 billion in four years right in Treasury's garden, Herrera Velutini thinks a resignation and a 0.000025% contribution of amount laundered will do.
