Pulido Vargas was a shareholder in the Ecuadorian company Fondo Global de Construcción, linked to public contracts to build houses in Venezuela.
Colombian Álvaro Pulido Vargas would be a key player in the business of his compatriot, businessman Álex Saab Morán, whom the US authorities consider the figurehead of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The justice of the United States made public last Thursday the accusation that the Department of Justice raised on October 7 against Pulido Vargas and four other people for alleged money laundering within a scheme of bribes to high officials of the Venezuelan government.
The list of defendants includes former governor of the state of Táchira, José Vielma Mora, who held that position between 2012 and 2017. US prosecutors accuse him of receiving $ 17.3 million in bribes. The others named are the Colombians Emanuel Rubio González and Calos Lizcano Manrique, and the Venezuelan Spanish Ana Guillermo Luis.
The accusation, which is public, indicates that the bribes would have been given in exchange for four contracts totaling $ 855.8 million for the distribution of food and medicine in Venezuela, through the government program called Local Supply and Production Committee (CLAP). As a remedial measure, prosecutors asked the judge for the seizure of assets for $ 1,607 million against the five defendants.
According to the judicial investigation, Vargas Pulido – also known as Germán Enrique Rubio Salas and as “Cuchi” – would have formed several companies to obtain public contracts for food and medicine, with the help of his collaborators. Prosecutors targeted two companies: Group Grand Limited y Asasi Foods.
The contracts were awarded under the CLAP umbrella by two public institutions in Venezuela: the Venezuelan Foreign Trade Corporation (Corpovex) and the Táchira State Commercialization of Goods and Services (Cobiserta).
According to the indictment, in 2016 three collaborators of Pulido Vargas met with the then governor of Táchira, Vielma Mora, to agree to pay bribes in exchange for food distribution contracts. The document adds that other sessions also participated two Venezuelan officials who held high positions in the Ministry of Finance of Venezuela, the Bank of Economic and Social Development of Venezuela (Bandes), the National Development Fund (Fonden) and the Corpovex.
In October 2016, Cobiserta awarded the first contract to Group Grand Limited for approximately $ 340 million for the importation and distribution of 10 million boxes of food, at a rate of $ 34 for each box, the indictment notes. And he adds: “Although José Gregorio Vielma Mora knew that the cost of production and importation of the food boxes was much lower than $ 34 per box, he agreed with the co-conspirators to authorize Cobiserta to buy the boxes from an inflated price so that co-conspirators could use surplus funds to pay bribes to Vielma Mora and other Venezuelan officials ”.
According to the accusation, the payment of the contracts came from the Bandes and the Fonden. Prosecutors say they found two accounts where the money was going: one in Antigua in the name of Group Grand Limited and another in the United Arab Emirates in the name of Asasi Food. From there the bribes would have been triangulated, using the American financial system, argue the accusers.
The accusation also points out that since Venezuela had limitations to pay foreign companies due to the shortage of dollars in its economy, Vargas Pulido and one of his collaborators participated in the refining and sale of gold on behalf of Venezuela to secure your collections.
President Nicolás Maduro has ruled on Álex Saab’s participation in the importation and distribution of food, medicine and gasoline in Venezuela, and has rated him as a hero. Saab was arrested in Cape Verde in June 2020 and was extradited to the United States on October 16.
Faced with this last fact, Maduro reacted as follows: “Alex Saab was going (to Cape Verde) as a special envoy to buy food and gasoline for Venezuela (…) That food for the people of Venezuela was brought by Alex Saab, gasoline was the Alex Saab brought the medicines that came for diabetics, cancer treatments, Alex Saab brought them from the world, ”according to the official Telesur chain.
Business in Ecuador
Álvaro Pulido Vargas has a chapter in Ecuador. He was one of the founding shareholders of the Ecuadorian company Fondo Global de Construcción (Foglocons) that, according to the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office, was involved in an alleged money laundering scheme. However, that accusation was rejected and Pulido Vargas was definitively dismissed in 2016 along with other people related to that company.
Floglocons was established in 2012 and had a relationship with companies of the same name that were already operating in Colombia and Peru. A year earlier, Álex Saab signed an agreement with him on behalf of Foglocons Colombia Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, to build popular houses.
An investigation carried out by Diario EL UNIVERSO, the Armando.Info portal and El Nuevo Herald de Miami, which was published in 2015, revealed that the Venezuelan government awarded the contracts for the construction of the houses to two Venezuelan companies and that these, at their own expense Once, they hired Foglocons Ecuador to provide them with prefabricated building panels.
According to the financial and customs records, Foglocons Ecuador received almost $ 160 million from Venezuelan contractors, but exported only $ 3.1 million.
Pulido Vargas transferred the shares he had in Foglocons Ecuador to the Spanish company Fondo Global Petrolero SL in May 2013, according to the records of the Superintendency of Companies. (I).
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