A house exploded this morning in Lechería, Anzoátegui state. After several hours of investigation, it was discovered that the house belongs to contractor Ernesto Guevara, who is accused of corruption at the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA.
The latter is due to the “irregular handling of dollars and business dealings with Bariven, a subsidiary of the state oil company Pdvsa, which he allegedly obtained thanks to the then president of the Venezuelan Food Producer and Distributor (Pdval), Luis Pulido,” who was arrested in 2010 accused of corruption for buying large quantities of food and waiting for it to spoil in order to generate new orders.
The specialized portal Poderopedia also warns that Guevara “was an administrator of PDVSA, where he had direct contracts with Citgo in Texas,” and that during that period he had a fleet of private planes that landed in the city of Anaco “every three days carrying large amounts of money” and that were seized by Robert Aranguren, commissioner in charge of the state police of Anzoátegui.
Guevara and his relationship with money laundering and corruption
Ernesto Guevara is one of those involved in the Citgo-PDVSA corruption case, which was investigated in 2020 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas in Houston, along with other contractors: Pietro Micale Rodríguez, Manuel Chinchilla Da Silva, Ángel Rodríguez, among others. These contractors used a series of shell companies, including Rothwell Energy, ICTS, Petroleum Logistics, DanelCorp., EcoWire, SPS, Stang Industrial Products, Ventex, Drill Corp, and Lexington Tech.
Guevara Rodríguez is a Venezuelan businessman who chaired Ingeniería, Mantenimiento y Proyectos del Lago, CA, owning 50% of the shares, and Servicios Técnicos Industriales Anaco 81, CA (STIACA). He owns 7.47% of the shares of the latter, and its main clients include PDVSA and PDVSA Gas.
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He also appeared as director of two companies: Suministros y Procuras GB, CA, which, according to the National Registry of Contractors (RCN), is responsible for: “the purchase, sale, import, export, marketing, lease or sublease wholesale or retail of all types of movable goods, equipment, tools or machinery useful and appropriate for the oil, construction, agricultural or commercial industry” and Hydrowell, SA, a company in which he has a little more than 31% of the shares, intended to manufacture, execute and maintain metal-mechanical installations for the oil industry.
In 2020, U.S. Magistrate Judge Gray H. Miller of Texas reported on the trial of former CITGO official Jose Luis De Jongh-Atencio, a Venezuelan-American accused of participating in a money laundering scheme to secure contracts for the companies.
Jongh worked at the Houston-based subsidiary of PDVSA’s special projects group from 2013 until at least 2019. He accepted more than $2.5 million in bribe payments from contractors José Manuel González Testino and Tulio Anibal Farías Pérez, and others, such as Guevara.
In addition, he ordered bribe payments from contractors to bank accounts in the names of shell companies in Panama and Switzerland. He also laundered the bribe proceeds through U.S. bank accounts and used most of the funds to purchase real estate in Texas, according to the Justice Department.
So far, the reason why Ernesto Guevara’s house exploded is unknown; however, the event has raised suspicions for two reasons: first, because of Guevara’s close relationship with the state oil company; and second, because of the current context, in which the Nicolás Maduro regime has detained more than 80 people since March 17 for corruption cases in state institutions.