rafael ramirez

A restructuring proposal to take PDVSA back to its core business was making the rounds recently. Out with importing food, feeding chicken and building cardboard housing, in with amending laws to attract foreign investment and to allow PDVSA to become minority partner, recovering refineries, increase output and decrease taxes and royalties. U.S. sanctions, globe's oil glut, and the Chinavirus must have precipitated the move, which, has to be said, is and has been the only solution.

What a spectacle, ladies and gentlemen, this promises to be. Right after popular wake to the news of Alejandro Betancourt funding Juan Guaido and using Guaido's father to provide bona fides to Rudy Giuliani, we had Jorge Rodriguez, the most corrupt political operator of chavismo in one corner, and Rafael Ramirez, the most corrupt financial operator of chavismo in the other, meeting in a virtual ring yesterday, to throw punches about Betancourt, Venezuela's most corrupt bolichico.

Rafael Ramirez is a person of interest to this site. For over a decade, Ramirez was, simultaneously, Minister of Energy and Petroleum (MEP) and CEO of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). This can not be denounced enough: the watchdog (Minister) and the executive (CEO) can not reasonably be the same person, for when that happens "$700 billion disappear", as Ramirez admitted to Germany's Deutsche Welle (DW) recently.

The rumour mill is in overspin regarding Rafael Ramirez. A prevalent gossip is that he is "collaborating" in the provision of information highly damaging to Nicolas Maduro, which is "being used" by the Trump administration to "advance" its agenda. Another line of gossip has it that ENI, the Italian oil conglomerate, is providing "legal protection" to Ramirez, who spends most of his time nowadays in Italy. Ramirez, Luisa Ortega Diaz and Hugo Carvajal, as per another line, form a triumvirate of "decent" chavistas, folks with whom the U.S.

Remember this scandal, involving Ricardo Salgado's Banco Espirito Santo and Rafael Ramirez? It seems Portuguese authorities are more collaborative than Spanish ones...

Spanish news outlet ABC posted about connection between Wilmer Ruperti, Hugo Carvajal, and disgraced judge Baltasar Garzón. This is not the first instance where Ruperti's largesse -when it comes to covering legal expenses of chavista criminals- has been shown. Ruperti paid for Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores' narco-nephews.

Check out Rafael Ramirez upon being sacked from U.N. diplopost in New York, 7 December 2017, about PDVSA transfers to the State under his watch:

Now, read Ramirez's claim on same topic, 14 July 2019:

Not a secret that Al Capone got done for tax evasion. Neither that Italy's Agenzia delle Entrate launched a rather spectacular probe into Dolce & Gabbana international operations due to alleged tax evasion. So what about Rafael Ramirez? Sources repeatedly place Ramirez, wife Beatrice Sanso, and brother in law Baldo Sanso as residents in Italy. Our own investigation found details of Baldo Sanso's ex wife and son living in Rome, as well as tax identification cards related to Ramirez, Beatrice and Baldo.

There's no rest for the wicked Rafael Ramirez. Beyond idiotic presidential aspirations that will never materialise, Ramirez is a hunted man. Add Portugal to U.S., Swiss, Andorra, Spanish and Venezuelan jurisdictions, where he remains a wanted man / person of interest. Many of his closest and most trusted partners-in-crime are in jail in some of those jurisdictions. The impending danger for Ramirez is that his lieutenants have already opened up.

Further to leak of co-conspirators of Francisco Convit and Matthias Krull in setting up a scheme that saw $1.2 billion worth of PDVSA funds misappropriated and laundered, this site can add new elements that point directly to Rafael Ramirez's door. The U.S.