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These five people allegedly paid bribes to Venezuelan government officials to import and distribute food and medicine.
Three Colombians and two Venezuelans were indicted in the United States for their alleged participation in a network that laundered money from a program to supply food and medicine to Venezuela, the Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.
One of the defendants, Colombian Álvaro Pulido Vargas, 57, is already in the crosshairs of US justice for other alleged money laundering crimes, committed with his partner Alex Saab.
The latter, a businessman close to the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, has just been extradited from Cape Verde to Miami to be tried on eight charges of money laundering. A decision that angered Caracas.
The defendants also include José Gregorio Vielma-Mora, who was governor of the Venezuelan state of Táchira between 2013 and 2017, and Pulido’s son, Emmanuel Enrique Rubio González, 32 years old.
The other defendants are the Colombian Carlos Rolando Lizcano Manrique, 50, and the Venezuelan Ana Guillermo Luis, 49, according to the indictment delivered by a federal grand jury from the Southern District of Florida.
These five people allegedly paid bribes to Venezuelan government officials to import and distribute food and medicine in the South American country, through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), a state-owned and controlled program.
According to the indictment, they inflated the prices of the products they supplied to profit.
And between mid-2015 and at least 2020, they conspired with other individuals to launder their earnings in bank accounts in other countries, including the United States.
The five defendants and their collaborators received about $ 1.6 billion from Venezuelan authorities and transferred about $ 180 million through or to the United States, the indictment said.
Pulido, Vielma-Mora, Rubio, Lizcano and Guillermo face four counts of money laundering and one of conspiracy to launder funds.
If convicted, they could serve up to 100 years in prison each. (I)
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