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El Nacional reported yesterday, without giving much detail, that Alessandro Bazzoni is the ultimate beneficiary owner of United Petroleo, a Panamanian shell that has been lifting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of PDVSA crude in the recent past. United Petroleo was part of a trade that involved Luis Giusti's Caribbean Petroleum Refinery, Refineria di Kòrsou and various authorities in Curaçao. Other reports indicate that upon Alex Saab's arrest in Cape Verde, his partner, convicted drug trafficker Alvaro Pulido Vargas, continued trading with PDVSA using a number of shells that this site had already revealed as part of Saab's network. Additionally, Bazzoni and Saab did a good amount of business together, also exposed here in May 2020. So where do these transactional partnerships leave Luis Giusti?
Giusti, and his son, were once guests of Pulido Vargas aboard a private flight. It was reported in Ecuadorian media. The fact that Giusti had no issue of being in such company speaks volumes about his integrity, and it explains subsequent involvement with Treasury-sanctioned Bazzoni.
Giusti & co did just that one deal in Curaçao. Giusti's presence in process to kickstart Isla Refinery came to a precipitous yet entirely predictable end, with dissolution of Caribbean Petroleum Refinery. However there are still many unanswered questions regarding Curaçao's authorities's wilful blindness in what can only be described as an absolutely corrupt energy deal.
With United Petroleo Bazzoni allegedly usurped name of a known subsidiary of China Sinopec to conduct deals with PDVSA. This is a tried and tested method that has been used extensively during chavista rule in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan authorities are meant to be combatting corruption surrounding Tareck el Aissami's stint as Oil Minister tasked with restructuring PDVSA. A few arrests, curiously including Pulido Vargas, have been made. It is evident that the Maduro administration can only be selective when it comes to corruption. Scratch any of the powerful factions that control chavismo and there’s inescapable overlap linking and sustaining the entire structure. It will take too long to list all links in the chain, however this site has kept meticulous track. Tareck's corrupt structure couldn’t function totally independently anymore than Delcy & Jorge Rodriguez's network, or Diosdado's. Maduro & Cilia, sitting at top of criminal enterprise, cannot hope to expect that its anti graft campaign be taken seriously.
What Maduro is really doing is a purge of sorts. Money is tight and his fellow travelers's gluttony is being punished. This does not mean, in any way, that Maduro is clean and the rest aren't. Remember the narco-nephews? Remember Maduro's support and indebtedness to Alex Saab, and the huge amount of political capital he's personally invested in freeing that thug? Maduro knew since inception that Saab's main partner was former head of Bogotá's Cartel, yet he has subordinated Venezuela's resources and reputation for Saab. What does that say about him?
It is just a corruption-restructuring process, a realignment, the one Tareck was meant to have done. Venezuela = corruption. This has been, is and will remain a constant.
