Venezuela's Corruption Exposed

Message to INFODIO readers: investigative journalism, which is what this site does, takes lots of time. Visiting media looking for a quick run down on Venezuela's gargantuan corruption, have the decency to at least cite the source when plagiarising this site's content without attribution (exhibit Reuters here and here, exhibit Bloomberg here, exhibit OCCRP here). To all readers, do the right thing, the honest thing: support independent investigative journalism, help us expose rampant corruption. Note added 28/06/2021: impostors are using INFODIO's former editor's full name, and a fake email address (alek.boyd.arregui at gmail.com) to send copyright infringement claims / take down requests to web hosting companies (exhibit Hostgator). The attempt is yet another effort paid by corrupt thugs to erase information about their criminal activities. Infodio.com has no issues with other websites / journalists using / posting information published here, so long as the source is properly cited.

About

infodio

Etymology: from in (“in, at, on”) + fodiō (“dig”)

Latin Verb: present active īnfodiō, present infinitive īnfodere, perfect active īnfōdī, supine īnfossum

dig in or up, bury in the earth, inter, make by digging; excavate.

This is a bilingual site, please click on English or Spanish flags for corresponding version.

The mission of Infodio is to uncover. To expose. To reveal. What began as a personal blog has now become more than a pastime. Muckraking, in the finest sense of the term, is this site's mission.

Those exposed here will, for the most part, get away with their crimes. However, we have learned that the one thing these shameless parasites crave is respectability. Consequently, public exposure terrifies them. To our dismay, we’ve seen that many journalists and public leaders lack the guts to state publicly what we expose in this blog. 

Here we ventilate issues that are not properly exposed in the mainstream media. Our hope is that visiting journalists will come to realize that the documents published here are genuine, and the analysis provided is a good faith effort at getting at the truth. We hope that whenever material published in this site is used by traditional journalists (here's looking at you Reuters, WSJ, Bloomberg, Miami Herald, Argus Media, Armando.info, El Confidencial, etc.), they'll have the decency of citing the source appropriately. Other contributors will publish here from time to time, and articles of interest seen elsewhere may also be reposted here.

Until January 2022, this site was edited by Alek Boyd (http://alekboyd.com). He started blogging about Venezuelan politics in October 2002. The LatAm bureau chief of The Economist described him once in an email as “a fanatically anti-Chavez blogger but also has a reputation as a good investigative journalist.​” The issue at hand was having shed light on one corruption case in Ecuador. His reply was: "If being pro democracy, human, civil and political rights, pro free market, rule of law, etc., is to be a fanatic, then guilty as charged.​" Fortunately, Alek's mission got results: this site got censored by Nicolas Maduro's regime in Venezuela, and Alex Saab, Maduro's favourite operative, got arrested in Cape Verde and extradited to the U.S. in October 2021 on the back of an investigation published here in October 2013.

Saab's arrest proved that investigative journalism can have a tangible impact, even in places like Venezuela. Some of this site's investigations form the backbone of many ongoing criminal investigations in various jurisdictions and our former editor paid a hefty price, including a break into his flat in London, threats of sexual abuse made against his children, illegal surveillance, endless hacking attempts and a relentless online onslaught. Also in London, Alek was at the receiving end of Putinesque censorship attempts and legal harassment by "reputed" law and PR firms that just could not be more representative of Britain's ruling classes.

Time has come for others to pick up the mantle, carry on with the work, and take this site into new directions. A collective of investigative journalists based in Venezuela and elsewhere will continue Infodio's mission, as long as rampant corruption continues plunging Venezuela into new depths of depravity and misery.

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