derwick associates

Back in late 2012, when I wrote my first post about Derwick Associates and got interested in their activities, I remember having done a WHOIS search on their domain name derwickassociates.com. The site appeared to have have been registered by Derwick Associates de Venezuela, using 17121 Collins Avenue, Apt.

Last week I posted about latest filings in Otto Reich's RICO lawsuit against Derwick Associates. It presents quite an unexpected and interesting twist to the corruption saga: one of the defendants, Francisco D'Agostino, allegedly offered information on the other two defendants (Alejandro Betancourt and Pedro Trebbau) to Reich in "exchange for his dismissal" from the lawsuit. No honour among thieves, right?

Lawyers for Otto Reich in the RICO lawsuit against Derwick Associates (Alejandro Betancourt, Pedro Trebbau and Francisco D'Agostino) claim in latest filing (page 7 below) that D'Agostino (in turn son in law of Bolivarian banker Víctor Vargas of Banco Occidental de Descuento fame) "in exchange for his dismissal from this lawsuit, offered to provide information to Ambassador Reich that would be damning to Betancourt and Trebbau."

The good folks from Reporters Without Borders published in its We Fight Censorship website a post entitled "Corruption Off Limits on Venezuelan Internet", where censorship of this website in Venezuela is exposed.

I know, I know, today's a Sunday, mothers' day in the UK, but the stuff in Twitter from @jescotet is just too good to ignore. Check out the following tweets:

Descifrado.com reports that Thor Halvorssen (my former boss at The Human Rights Foundation) has sued Derwick Associates (Alejandro Betancourt, Pedro Trebbau, Francisco D'Agostino and 25 others) in the 11th Circuit of Miami-Dade, Florida. Allegedly, high figures from chavismo could be involved in corruption. Derwick Associates has another pending lawsuit, in New York, filed by former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Otto Reich.

infodioLeaks continues to provide some truly amazing leaks about corruption in Venezuela. One of the first questions ever asked to Derwick Associates, when it became known that it had been gifted 12 contracts in non-bidding processes, was to produce copy of said contracts. After all, Derwick was believed to be a Venezuelan private company, run by Venezuelans, that had been contracted by Venezuelan State's institutions, and that had been paid with Venezuelan public funds.

Alejandro Betancourt is a chavista wunderkind. A 'pioneer and global entrepreneur' he seems to be preparing his move to Spain, considering the tough times in his native Venezuela. Given his worldwide 'stature' as a 'businessman, philanthropist, innovator, and financial wizard,' Mr. Betancourt’s PR team recently unveiled a new website: AlejandroBetancourt.Es (notice Spain’s TLD) to serve as his presentation card to the world.

Damaging corruption information keeps arriving at infodioLeaks. Check out the document below. Google "Rolls Royce Trent 60" and lots of different results will come up, though the one I like is this one: it's from Mark Alflatt, Rolls Royce's Director of Financial Communications, who in May 2009 wired a press release entitled "ROLLS-ROYCE WINS €70 MILLION TRENT CONTRACT TO POWER GERMAN POWER STATION". In it one can read:

The document below is a prelude to the sort of deals that the Venezuelan State, through its utterly corrupt officials (like BARIVEN's President Guillermo Arellano) made with the bolichicos of Derwick Associates: Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, Francisco Convit Guruceaga, Francisco D'Agostino, and Pedro Trebbau Lopez.