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There's been a few developments in Venezuela's oil sector that have gone under the radar. One of them is related to one of Derwick Associates: Francisco D'Agostino. The other involves Petrozamora, the PDVSA - Gazprombank joint venture where Derwick Oil & Gas is a partner.
Further to sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V., a company formed by Boris Ivanov of GPB Global Resources B.V. and Francisco Convit and Orlando Alvarado...
The U.S. Justice Department unsealed some charges yesterday related to a money laundering and bribery scheme involving some of the usual suspects exposed in this website: "Five Former Venezuelan Government Officials Charged in Money Laundering Scheme Involving Foreign Bribery"
Evidence has emerged that Derwick Associates paid bribes to Nervis Villalobos through Banca Privada D'Andorra. A "Consulting and Advisory Services Agreement" between Derwick Associates Corp. and INGESPRE (Nervis Villalobos' vehicle) was entered by the parties on 14 January 2010. The contract's recitals imply that Derwick Associates is a foreign concern "which does have an office in Venezuela and wishes to do further business there".
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report, in August 2014, on prosecutors from the Southern District of New York probing Venezuela's rampant corruption.
UPDATED - Before getting to Fusion GPS associations to Venezuela, let me just say that that country is, by far, Latin America's most corrupt. Its president, Nicolas Maduro, has the unique distinction of being the "individual who has done the most in the world to advance organized criminal activity and corruption" according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Further to Bloomberg's reporting that Swiss authorities are collaborating with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's corruption probe into PDVSA and Derwick Associates, I posted an open letter, enclosed below.
There are many things we still don't know about Derwick Associates, but there's one we do know: Alejandro Betancourt (left), Pedro Trebbau and Jeff Canon (right) swindled -at the very least- $70 million USD from the Venezuelan State.
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