Venezuela: corruption and embargo

Nicolás Maduro, during a military ceremony in Caracas.HANDOUT / REUTERS

For years, the Government of Venezuela has moved with the support of an opaque network huge amounts of oil, money and other resources such as coal and aluminum, under the guise of humanitarian aid, to try to evade the sanctions imposed by the United States. The plot, which involves dozens of people and companies, has been unfolded, as revealed this weekend by an investigation by EL PAÍS and the Venezuelan media

by some thirty countries, including tax havens, and has generated a dark multimillionaire business in which the connivance of the Chavista leadership with businessmen willing to deceive in order to profit.

The sanctions that the first power has imposed on Venezuela since 2014, first with the Obama Administration, then with that of Trump and now with that of Biden, have not managed to suffocate Nicolás Maduro and the leadership that surrounds him as well as the people, the great victim of the tragedy that plagues the country. Far from that, it has caused Chavista senior officials and their operators to have woven opaque networks that move millions and millions of euros around the world of which they have barely left a trace. The investigation confirms that behind this corrupt network are the people who surround the Venezuelan leader, such as his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, and businessman Alex Saab, detained a year ago in Cape Verde and whom Chavismo wants to turn into little more than a martyr.It can be understood that a government subjected to a regime of international sanctions seeks ways to circumvent them; In no way is the kind of manipulation and corruption that has been exposed acceptable.

The investigation goes beyond Venezuela and also details the involvement of several Mexican businessmen and the collaboration they have had with the current government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to operate. The argument given by the

from the Foreign Ministry that Mexico is against any sanction that serves as pressure and that it must collaborate with practically any businessman who approaches it, for the good of Mexico, the region and its own businesses, it falls under its own weight . You can be critical of the sanctions against Venezuela and, at the same time, not contribute to a dark business where the suspicions of enrichment are more than enough. Mexico, which fairly wants to mediate and host a negotiation between the Government and the Venezuelan opposition, should cut off any relationship with this plot that contributes to the authoritarian drift of the regime and, therefore, to the suffocation of the Venezuelan people.