In October 2018 this site posited that Victor Vargas' Banco Occidental de Descuento was a Ponzi. Shortly after, Curaçao’s Central Bank acted decisively against Banco del Orinoco, a fully-owned subsidiary controlled by Vargas. Similar measures against Vargas' banking operations followed in Panama, Venezuela and Antigua. However it looks like Victor Vargas managed to get some kind of deferred prosecution deal, and then breached it, for on September 4th (2023) SUDEBAN (Venezuela's Banking watchdog) sent communication to all banks -on instructions from prosecutors in Caracas- requesting information related to accounts belonging to Vargas, Francisco D'Agostino, Luis Alfonso de Borbon, and other management and staff.
Estimates place around one billion USD amount of clients' funds misappropriated by Vargas & co.