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.

Is Kroll the newest members of Derwick Associates' reputation management offensive?

Gustavo Gomez Lopez's UK residency
scrutinized by The Times

Dear Kroll employees who have been poking around:

I know you have a long and rotten history of working for some of Venezuela's nastiest and most corrupt figures. They range from major bank fraud titan Jose Alvarez Stelling from Banco Consolidado, to the loathsome Gustavo Gomez Lopez at Banco Latino (the Madoff of Venezuela) who now pretends to be a lawyer in Venezuela, failing to mention any reference to Banco Latino and its vanished billions in his bio.

You filled your corporate coffers with the ill-gotten payments of these corrupt oligarchs of the pre-Chavez era, it was a real waterfall of "fees." And now it appears, from what a source tells me but that I cannot confirm, that you couldn't help yourself and are doing work for the corrupt moneymen of the Boligarchy. I noticed you were visiting the site recently. Specifically, looking for information about Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, and his Derwick Associates gig. Newest Venezuelan client, perhaps? Did Derwick dismissed FTI Consulting already, or are you collaborating in the production of "due dilligence" reports and "vetting" Betancourt-Lopez, and his partners Francisco Convit, Edgar Romero Lazo, Iker Candina and Pedro Trebbau-Lopez? 

If I recall correctly, it was your company, Kroll, that "vetted" and gave a thumbs-up to a businessman by the name of Allen J. StanfordRightHow did that work out for you?
 

Criminals having fun:
Orlando Castro (left)
and Jose Alvarez Stelling

I guess if you are looking into the Derwick boys while holding a check from their overflowing accounts at JP Morgan, you are probably thinking these are fine, upstanding young men. Why else would a bank like JP Morgan Chase be in business with them, right? Didn't Derwick file a $300M defamation lawsuit when someone questioned their "sterling reputation", only to cower at the prospects of discovery in a US court and having to settle, while being dismissed with prejudice? I would have thought that after another Venezuelan blogger brought down Allen Stanford you would err in the side of caution, but when will you learn your lesson Kroll?

I have been told that for your previous Venezuela capers you had a former "super-agent" of the DEA, Thomas Cash,  always trading on his "special agent in charge of the largest DEA office in the world, the Florida and Caribbean Division" meme and charging the dirtiest businessmen in Venezuela ridiculous amounts for his "due diligence" work. Cash was also meant to be a "fraud and money laundering" expert, wasn't he? Where is Mr Cash now?  Oh, right, he's the one who OK'd Allen Stanford, and kept defending him even after he was no longer a Kroll client, and had to step down in utter disgrace as head of Kroll in Miami. I'm looking forward to watching you make fools of yourselves as you pursue Derwick's dollars. Thus far, you're proving to be as useless as FTI Consulting and your former man Frank Holder...

 

"Super DEA agent" Tom Cash,
former Kroll Executive Managing
Director, and agent of Allen Stanford