Colonel Marino José Lugo Aguilar, a trusted soldier of Hugo Chávez and former super minister Tareck El Aissami,
died by “hanging”
this Wednesday in official custody of the authorities, after being arrested for the
corruption scandal
of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA-Cryptocurrencies).
The Venezuelan Public Ministry confirmed the death of the man who was the right-hand man of high-ranking official El Aissami, also detained for a week. In his account of
The colonel would be charged with the crimes of "appropriation or distraction of public assets; conspiracy to enter into contracts; evasion of procedures, controls or restrictions in bidding; money laundering, treason and association," the Prosecutor's Office said.
The prosecution did not detail where and under what conditions they found his body or how the hanging occurred, that is, whether it was self-inflicted when the autopsy was performed. His death would have occurred a few hours after being interrogated by the Military Counterintelligence Directorate (DGCIM), local press said.
His death would be
the third apparent 'suicide'
in the PDVSA-Cripto corruption plot in the midst of the police investigations that the government of Nicolás Maduro has been carrying out for a year for embezzlement in the oil company that reaches some 23,000 million dollars.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, in the second quarter of 2023, arrests for this corruption scheme were paralyzed after the death in custody of two of those detained: one due to suicide and another due to a pre-existing illness.
The corruption scandal
Nearly 60 people have been arrested since March 2023
when the Prosecutor's Office announced the beginning of the investigation, which joins another 25 opened since 2017 for corruption in the state oil company. There are 17 other arrest warrants issued.
According to the Armando.Info portal, before holding various public positions, Colonel Marino Lugo was a member of the Honor Guard of the late President Hugo Chávez.
Lugo graduated from the Venezuelan Military Academy in 1999, just the year Chávez came to power. His first contacts with PDVSA were in 2011.
The colonel held the National Market Management of PDVSA, in charge of the distribution of gasoline in the country, under the management of the Minister of Oil, Tareck El Aisaami, who is also accused of corruption in the PDVSA-Cripto case.
He was the right-hand man of the former Minister of Petroleum, El Aissami - a former confidant of President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez,
sanctioned by the United States for accusations of drug trafficking -
was arrested on April 9 for irregularities in the sale of crude oil. through crypto assets. El Aissami had resigned in March 2023 after the scandal and disappeared from public life until his arrest a week ago.
Five suspected "suicides"
The death of Colonel Marino Lugo
is the third to occur in less than a year in the custody of the authorities
. The paradox is that the cruel repressive system of the Chavista regime is now attacking the Chavistas themselves. It would also be the fifth suspicious death, but of political prisoners, such as that of Captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo and that of councilor Fernando Albán.
The balance of five suspected suicides in the hands of the Venezuelan State is reminiscent of Putin's Russian model. “What happened with Col. Marino Lugo, is the reissue of what they did to Fernando Alban, they tortured him until they murdered him and they tried to simulate suicide. They emulate Russia where Putin's enemies coincidentally “commit suicide” month after month,” says opposition leader Juan Guaidó, exiled in Miami.
“The Maduro-Tarek William Saab-Jorge Rodríguez clan must explain to the world and in more detail to their own people, how they torture, persecute and even murder, even their own,” adds Guaidó.
Human rights activist, lawyer Elisa Trotta also condemns the suspicious deaths. “Once again they announce a death after "interrogations" that, we know and this is how more than one report from international organizations has described, are carried out based on torture: A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. It is impossible not to remember another soldier "interrogated" under torture until his death: Captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo. It is impossible not to think about so many political prisoners who are being tortured right now. This barbarism must stop. Enough,” she writes on her X account.
C.B.