U.S. judge rules former Venezuelan oil minister owes $1.4 billion

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

BUSINESS NEWS FEBRUARY 14, 2019 / 7:33 PM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

U.S. judge rules former Venezuelan oil minister owes $1.4 billion

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge in Houston ordered a former Venezuelan oil minister this week to pay the owners of a defunct Houston oil company $1.4 billion in damages in a fraud suit, although it is unclear if or how the payment will ever be made.

U.S. District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal issued the default judgment on Wednesday after Rafael Ramirez did not contest Harvest Natural Resources’ claims, according to an opinion accompanying the ruling.

James Edmiston, Harvest Natural’s former chief executive and director, said on Thursday he was pleased with the order. Whether the shareholders of Harvest will ever receive a payment from Ramirez “is the $1.4 billion question,” he said.

Ramirez, in a message to Reuters, said he was not surprised by the order, but declined further comment.

Harvest’s suit claimed Venezuela refused to allow the company to sell its assets in the country from 2012, leading it to lose $472 million. It accused Ramirez and others of seeking a $10 million bribe to approve the transaction.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-ramirez/u-s-judge-rules-former-venezuelan-oil-minister-owes-1-4-billion-idUSKCN1Q401J

[GatoGordo]

1. PSST! "ANDORRAN BANKS!"

The Chavista attache in London was recently caught trying to sneak more Venezuelan dinero into another bank there.

https://dolartoday.com/digna-representante-del-narco-regimen-embajadora-de-maduro-en-londres-oculto-cuatro-millones-de-dolares-en-andorra/


The diplomat justified last September before a judge of the small Pyrenean principality that her money in Andorra came from the sale of the rights of an inheritance in Venezuela.

By: Joaquín Gil & José María Irujo | THE COUNTRY

translated from Spanish

Del Valle moved the capital under suspicion through four accounts in the Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA). And it used a structure of "instrumental societies" created in Panama by the bank itself to transfer its economic flow, according to Uifand.

The diplomat charged between July and November 2012 in the Andorran entity four million dollars from a front man of the Venezuelan insurance entrepreneur Diego Salazar, cousin of Rafael Ramírez, former energy minister of the Latin American country and strong man of the governments of former president Hugo Chávez (1999-2013).

Salazar, who is being prosecuted in Andorra for money laundering, remains in a Caracas prison since 2017 after being arrested by the government of Nicolás Maduro for the looting of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the main state company of the Latin American country.

The ambassador of Venezuela in the United Kingdom used her accounts in Andorra as a bridge to take her money out of the small Pyrenean principality. Thus, it transferred between September and October 2013 a total of 1.7 million dollars (1.5 million euros) from its deposits in the BPA to two accounts in the name of one of its three children in the Royal Bank of Canada. Switzerland and the Continental National Bank of Miami, according to Uifand.

In the document called Know Your Customer (known to her client, in English), a sort of third grade where the origin of her funds is explained, the ambassador appeared before the bank as "diplomatic" in reference to the fact that at that time she was the head of the Venezuelan legation in China. And he justified his money as fees for alleged "international business consulting" work.

And, if push comes to shove, the Chavista regime in Caracas can get a loan from Chavez' daughter, Maria Gabriela, worth an estimated $4.3 billion.