Message to INFODIO readers: investigative journalism, which is what this site does, takes lots of time and effort. Visiting media looking for a quick run down on Venezuela's gargantuan corruption, pls have the decency to at least cite the source when plagiarising this site's content without attribution (exhibit Reuters here, exhibit Bloomberg here, exhibit OCCRP here). To all readers: do the right thing, the honest thing, support independent investigative journalism. 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. 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. Note added 12/06/2026: infodio.com has not created mirror websites / domains and remains totally independent and unrelated to others. Beware of websites using our brand.
Sometime in May 2019, Daniel Lara Farias alerted me to a gig involving Gustavo Guaido and Juan Salcedo Marquez (brother and cousin of sorts of "interim president" Juan Guaido respectively). It was about some bank details related to payments, whose ultimate beneficiary was a UK shell called FIVENDES (FONDO VENEZOLANO DE DESARROLLO LTD). Guaido and Salcedo were said to have been commissioned by "president" Guaido to fundraise.
Oh the glee of Antonio Mugica -founder / CEO of Smartmatic and very first specimen of the bolichico class- must be stratospheric right now. Donald Trump's entirely baseless electoral fraud claims will legitimise Mugica's e-voting company forevermore. The best voting company chavista money could buy has an unblemished track record. Till Trump appeared, Smartmatic had a legitimately earned average of 100% on elections in which it had participated marred by genuine fraud allegations.
Raul Gorrin is a thug. No question about it. But in the ecosystem of Venezuelan thuggery, he's not, by any stretch, the biggest, meanest, worst of them all.
The first email from nicolasmaduromoro@protonmail.com (aka Francisco Morillo, CEO of Helsinge) came in June 2018.
As readers may have noticed, this site has been yet again hit by a considerable DDoS attack in the last few days. This attack was followed by a series of reports to Twitter, whereby information posted by us related to multi billion dollar corruption scandals, which are already in the public domain, somehow get categorised as "personal private information" by Twitter algorithms and are summarily deleted.
Check this out, from the U.S. Department of Justice: "Vitol Inc. (Vitol), the U.S. affiliate of the Vitol group of companies, which together form one of the largest energy trading firms in the world, has agreed to pay a combined $135 million to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to resolve a parallel investigation in Brazil."
UPDATED 09/12/2020 SEE BELOW - Twitter, has got to be said, is less and less a platform for public debate, and more and more a media outlet with a unique editorial line. Whatever makes Jack tick, or takes his fancy, that's what goes. In the mold of Facebook, where the other idiot reigns, Twitter's Terms of Service (ToS) are vague enough to give plenty of subjective room to Twitter's bots to decide what can and can't be posted in the platform.
This site has got hold of a letter, ref. 163X-I-IQ-C2072771, dated August 4 2017, addressed to Erin E. Mikita and signed by Robert C Basanez, whereby the following can be read:
"In 2013, an FBI money laundering investigation was initiated, based on information provided by the Andorran government, into the following individuals:
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