Venezuela's Corruption Exposed

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Derwick Associates settles out of court

11 years ago By Alek Boyd

Last week a source in D.C. tipped me about Al Cardenas' desperation to "get out of" Derwick Associates lawsuit as "quickly as possible." I wrote to Cardenas and Joseph DeMaria to enquire about it, alas neither replied. Last Friday, Derwick Associates settled out of court its spurious lawsuit in Miami against Banco Venezolano de Credito (BVC), Oscar Garcia Mendoza, and Rafael Alfonzo. It's been reported that Derwick's sole requirement was to get a no-countersue guarantee from BVC et al. It's also in the news that Florida Circuit Judge John W. Thornton dismissed Derwick's suit with prejudice. Oh boy, what an embarrassment...

Readers may recall that the whole thing started with a couple of articles by an award winning journalist (Cesar Batiz) in Venezuela's most read newspaper (Ultimas Noticias), about a huge corruption racket, in which fly-by-night (Derwick Associates), run by two twenty-something year olds (Alejandro Betancourt Lopez and Pedro Trebbau Lopez), overcharged the Venezuelan State in the hundreds of millions of dollars, in a series of no-bid energy contracts awarded by utterly corrupt officials of the Hugo Chavez regime, in mysterious and most probably illegal circumstances. The novelty of this case in particular, is that the two halfwits running said company thought it would be great to prosecute its perceived critics (BVC et al) in a court of law in Miami. Well, that turned out to be a costly mistake, as predicted. After this deeply embarrassing u-turn Derwick Associates may be thinking that they got away with it, but truth is their problems have just started.

In subsequent posts, I shall be further exposing Derwick's associates (pun intended) in the USA: Hector Torres, Al Cardenas and, especially, FTI Consulting. Stay tuned...
 

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