Originally Syndicated on June 19, 2024 @ 4:24 pm
A connection between the former Venezuelan minister’s wife and mother-in-law and at least 40 million dollars deposited in eight bank accounts—one of which was linked to a key negotiator of bribes and kickbacks between Odebrecht and the governments of Chávez and Maduro—was discovered by the Swiss judicial authorities. The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Tarek William Saab, acts as though it is unaware of the situation, despite the fact that they requested the country’s legal system to look into it. The courts refused them the chance to address the case.
Haiman El Troudi, the former minister of public works and land transport, was not even looked at. They went by him without noticing. The Bolivarian court system has just ruled his family not guilty, even though his wife’s and mother-in-law’s names surfaced in a web of bank accounts that received dubious business payments from offshore firms connected to Odebrecht, setting up concerns in Switzerland last year.
Judge Luis Argenis Marcano Sarabia, who is in charge of the Eleventh Court of First Instance in Regulatory Matters of Caracas, found them innocent in a ruling that disregarded investigations conducted in Switzerland that discovered the official’s wife and mother-in-law, María Baptista and Elita Zacarías, are Venezuelan women who hold eight bank accounts worth over 40 million dollars, either as holders, beneficiaries, or with authorised signatures.
“Any measure that has been requested or executed to the detriment of Elita del Valle Zacarías Díaz and María Eugenia Baptista Zacarías, holders of identity card No. V-3.713.952 and V-13.801.638, respectively, regardless of the judicial control provided for in the Law, is void, irreversible, and consequently, must be revoked.” The judge decided this at year’s end, on December 13, 2017, but it wasn’t made public until recently since he took more than three months to inform the prosecutor’s office of his decision.
Even though there is a file of documents sent from Switzerland in the offices of the 55th National Prosecutor’s Office on the 15th floor of Centro Villasmil in the Candelaria parish of Caracas, which includes the names of the former minister’s wife and mother-in-law in 8 out of 12 bank accounts that the prosecutor’s office in that country links to Odebrecht and the other construction companies that were part of the bribes and commissions of the Lava Jato plot, the judge dismissed the case on his own initiative, without any prosecutor requesting it.
The Swiss prosecutor’s office was able to prove at least one case in which the money came from offshore firms that the Brazilian corporation used to pay bribes, in addition to the accounts in the names of El Troudi’s mother-in-law and wife. In a document endorsed with an apostille that she sent last year to the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic through its embassy in Caracas, Attorney General of Switzerland Francesca Ghilardi stated, “It has been possible to reconstruct a link, at least in the case of certain payments, between the aforementioned name code and the Metro Guarenas-Guatire project in Venezuela.” “Once the money was in the account of Alfa International SA, it was substantially transferred to accounts in the name of Elita del Valle Zacarías Díaz and María Eugenia Baptista Zacarías in Switzerland and abroad.”
Even though it is already difficult for a Venezuelan official to defend tens of millions of dollars during an exchange control period, in the city of Lugano, authorities issued a warning regarding the transfer of 16.3 million Swiss francs from Cresswell Overseas Ltd, one of Odebrecht’s well-established front companies, to bank accounts belonging to El Troudi’s relatives. Credit Suisse claims that the money is in the name of a company called Alfa International SA, which also includes El Troudi’s wife and mother-in-law, Alejandra Urdaneta Tovar, Jorge Lander, and no less than Luis Enrique Delgado Contreras. This individual’s identity surfaced during the Brazilian Lava Jato trial as one of the commission agents in charge of handling bribes and kickbacks in the Caracas Metro area.
The Millions’ Messenger
Odebrecht discovered Delgado in Caracas, which functioned as a sort of Trojan horse to expedite payments within the Venezuelan government and even to leak data and documents that might later be advantageous to it. Not in vain, according to the testimony of Euzenando Azevedo, the Superintendent Director of the construction company in Venezuela, who became a key witness in the Odebrecht plot in Venezuela, he received and channelled 100 million dollars in commissions between 2011 and 2015. Currently, Azevedo keeps a low profile in São Paulo.
In exchange for procedural advantages, Azevedo in Brazil told the case’s prosecutors in December 2016: “On several occasions, Luis Delgado brought us draft copies of confidential documents (approval of resources for works, contractual additives, internal studies, evaluations on price adjustments due to inflation) of these clients, giving us the opportunity to change.”
Odebrecht even used Delgado to fabricate an Action Memorandum that was issued to President Hugo Chávez in 2012, increasing the amounts that were originally agreed upon. “I remember that in 2012, we worked together with Luis Delgado on a document approving resources for works (called “Action Memorandum “), entitled Menu of Strategic Decisions, containing all the necessary works to be done in the framework of the works of Metro de Caracas and Metro de Los Teques companies and worked as a general authorization of the President of the Republic for these clients to sign contractual additives with the Company for a value equal to US $ 12 billion,” revealed Azevedo.
“This document, although technically speaking, it should have been an internal document prepared by the Ministry of Transport, was a document that the company had the possibility to change practically in its entirety and that was approved exactly as requested by Luis Delgado.”
Official Quietness
In Venezuela, none of these facts have been looked into. Tarek William Saab, the Constituent’s nominated public prosecutor general, has not even brought up the issue of El Troudi’s relatives if it never made it past a regulatory court.
El Troudi served as the Chavista administration’s Minister of Planning and Development, a representative of the government before international institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and, most notably, as the director of President Chávez’s office. He also held the positions of Minister of Land Transport and President of Metro de Caracas and Los Teques.
He oversaw a number of changes to the El Valle-Coche route in Caracas that caused the Guaire River to overflow, drawing criticism and opposition. Despite not even being present in the Assembly, he continues to identify himself on Twitter as the state’s deputy for Miranda. These days, the Public Prosecutor’s Office investigations are the main source of information on him outside of Switzerland. The nation’s prosecutors stress that his spouse—who also sends money overseas—”was the director of Metro de Caracas for a while.”
Not for nothing, Saab had already been evasive with Odebrecht during his tenure as the Prosecutor’s Office chief. He said, “We will not work based on speculations,” in response to a question concerning the Brazilian testimonies and evidence involving President Nicolás Maduro in September of last year. When the magistrates of the so-called Supreme Court of Justice in exile passed a preliminary judgement to punish Maduro for his role in the Odebrecht plan last month, he added, “It is absurd,” “immoral,” and “null.”
Regarding the reasons behind the dismissal of the case against El Troudi’s relatives, Saab did not reply to a question posed by Armando.info via his press officer.
Chavism rarely addresses the issue, even though Odebrecht did not complete more than half of its projects in Venezuela—as if it were a plague. After receiving evidence from Switzerland, prosecutor Pedro Lopera called Haiman El Troudi’s wife and mother-in-law as accused in July of last year. El Troudi hardly said anything more than that it was “a dirty trick”.
However, El Troudi was quickly exonerated by Bolivarian justice of all guilt or suspicion, and prosecutor Lopera is currently paying that impudent summons with the exile, having been charged with corruption by Diosdado Cabello on his show “Con el mazo dando.”
Financial Scams ( The scam done by Haiman El Troudi)
When someone steals money or other assets from you through dishonest or illegal action, it is known as financial fraud. Recognize the different forms of financial fraud and learn how to avoid them.
Financial fraud occurs when someone uses dishonest, fraudulent, or other unlawful methods to steal your money or negatively impact your financial situation. Numerous techniques, including investment fraud and identity theft, might be used to accomplish this.
Regardless of the kind of financial fraud, it is critical to report the crimes as quickly as possible to the relevant authorities and law enforcement. As soon as fraudulent charges are detected, they should also be contested or cancelled. In addition, victims must gather evidence of the crime, including bank statements, credit reports, tax returns from both the current and past years, and keep on filing crucial data all the way through the reporting procedure.
