Tareck El Aissami, Venezuelan Oil Minister, falls for PDVSA corruption

Tareck El Aissami, Minister of Petroleum of Venezuela, with Nicolás Maduro in a file photo. FEDERICO PARRA (AFP)

The Venezuelan Oil Minister, Tareck El Aissami, resigned from his position on Monday as a result of the investigations announced on Sunday against public officials linked to a corruption plot at the heart of the state oil company, PDVSA.

"By virtue of the investigations that have been initiated into serious acts of corruption in PDVSA, I have made the decision to present my resignation as Minister of Petroleum, with the purpose of fully supporting, accompanying and backing this process," El Aissami said through from his Twitter account before making himself available to the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to "support this crusade that President Nicolás Maduro has undertaken against the anti-values ​​that we are obliged to fight, even with our lives."

Petróleos de Venezuela, which was once a giant in the sector and today is dying after years of mismanagement and embezzlement of resources, has chained several cases of internal corruption, but it is the first time that the Chavista authorities have spoken so openly about one of the plots. .

The head of the Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office, Tarek William Saab, did so on Sunday, who advanced the beginning of an investigation against officials already detained by anti-corruption agents of the National Police.

All of them "appear involved, allegedly, in serious acts of corruption," Saab said in a statement released through social networks.

In this group, as confirmed by Saab himself to the AFP agency, are the official deputy Hugbel Roa, the president of the Caracas criminal circuit, Cristóbal Cornieles, Colonel Antonio Pérez Suárez, who works as vice president of Commerce and Quality Supply of the state oil company, and Joselit Ramírez, national superintendent of Cryptoactives, a public body that manages the increasingly scarce funds of the oil industry through operations with cryptocurrencies.

For the investigation, five prosecutors "with competence in matters of corruption, organized crime, human rights and full competence" were appointed.

"The illicit investigations correspond to different branches and levels of public power and involve strategic sectors for national development and the administration of justice," continued the public ministry.

The fall of Tareck El Aissami, head of the oil policy of the Government of Nicolás Maduro, is a blow to a leadership, marked by multiple cases of corruption, that PDVSA has handled in recent years and evidence of the power tensions that the country is experiencing. PSUV in their ranks.

El Aissami, accused of drug trafficking by the United States, had climbed positions in the Administration, reaching the position, between 2017 and 2018, of executive vice president.

News in development.

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