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Not a secret that Al Capone got done for tax evasion. Neither that Italy's Agenzia delle Entrate launched a rather spectacular probe into Dolce & Gabbana international operations due to alleged tax evasion. So what about Rafael Ramirez? Sources repeatedly place Ramirez, wife Beatrice Sanso, and brother in law Baldo Sanso as residents in Italy. Our own investigation found details of Baldo Sanso's ex wife and son living in Rome, as well as tax identification cards related to Ramirez, Beatrice and Baldo. Other sources have reported that Ramirez acquired Italian citizenship via marriage with Beatrice.
Ramirez is a wanted man back in Venezuela. The Maduro regime is reportedly keen on getting Ramirez: he knows too much, and Maduro can ill afford allowing the intel Ramirez has falling into the wrong hands, like for instance, use it as leverage to cut a deal with the U.S. government, in exchange for support for his bid to become Venezuela's next president. For some quite unexplainable reason, Ramirez has not been charged, is not in OFAC's SDN list, and even though nearly every PDVSA-related case announced by DoJ recently points directly to Ramirez, he has not been as much as mentioned.
In January 2018, Venezuela's Attorney General announced that it would seek to issue an INTERPOL Red Notice to arrest Rafael Ramirez. As of this writing INTERPOL's Red Notice database does not show a single individual wanted by Venezuela. This is perhaps due to successful challenges in the recent past, where it was shown that Chavismo was using Red Notices to chase political opponents (some were, utterly corrupt Boligarchs like Pedro Torres Ciliberto and his son not so much).
Sources report that Maduro has requested Italian authorities to extradite Ramirez. The extradition treaty between Italy and Venezuela dates from 1930, and it has a clause (art 4) that forbids extradition of own citizens, though it obliges counterparty to prosecute the accused if crime is also penalised in own body of laws:
"Le alte parti contraenti non concederanno la estradizione dei propri cittadini, ma si obbligano a processarli nel caso che la persecuzione del reato sia prevista dalle proprie leggi."
What's the law in Italy about the kind of corruption Rafael Ramirez was involved in? Considering that Ramirez almost singlehandedly managed PDVSA's budgets and income for over a decade -amounts that could almost rival Italy's GDP, and a large part of it was lost to corruption -thanks to Ramirez and his clique of relatives and facilitators, how come Italy is not investigating him?
Italy's position on tax evasion is well known. Has Signor Maggiore's office ever probed whether Ramirez pays, or has paid, the right amount of taxes while residing in Italy? Has Ramirez ever declared all his assets to Italy's tax authorities? What about wife, Beatrice, and brother in law, Baldo? Since going into hiding, after having been sacked from the UN's position, has Ramirez justified his income to Agenzia delle Entrate?
