Venezuelan Prosecutors Arrest Former Vice President in ‘Crypto Plot’ Probe
Venezuelan prosecutors say they have arrested former Vice President Tareck El Aissami, the alleged “ringleader” of a “crypto plot” to embezzle money from state oil sales.
El Aissami had been on the run from Venezuelan law enforcers for around a year after allegedly converting cash “into cryptocurrencies.”
Prosecutors think El Aissami and other senior government officials “moved coins” onto the Kraken crypto exchange after converting them elsewhere.
The high-profile case has become known as the “PDVSA-crypto corruption incident” in Venezuela.
It saw President Nicolás Maduro’s government raid dozens of government agencies and ministries last year.
Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil producer. The firm exports Venezuelan oil, and has previously used crypto as a payment tool to help evade Washington-led sanctions.
This reportedly led to the state accumulating a large “stash” of Bitcoin and Ethereum coins that it was allegedly unsure what to do with.
The biggest crypto casualty in the crackdown was Sunacrip (National Superintendence of Cryptoassets), the state’s crypto agency and the operator of the government-run oil-backed Petro coin.
Joselit Ramírez, the former President of Sunacrip, was arrested last year, along with senior officials including the lawmaker Hugbel Roa.
Attorney-General Tarek William Saab stated that El Aissami, who is also the former Minister of Oil, was arrested along with the businessman Samark López.
The nation’s former Minister of Economy, Simón Zerpa, was also arrested. Maduro’s government thinks that the ministers and others stole “billions of dollars.”
Former Venezuelan oil, finance ministers arrested in PDVSA corruption case, AG says https://t.co/SX3jBQ8sXP
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