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Pedro Tellechea, Venezuela’s former oil minister, had resigned simply days earlier than prosecutors introduced his arrest.
A former Venezuelan oil minister with alleged ties to a US intelligence agency has been arrested days after he resigned.
Pedro Tellechea, Venezuela’s former petroleum minister and former director of the state oil sector, was taken into custody on Sunday, AFP information company reported. Particulars of his arrest had been introduced on Monday.
Tellechea and his co-conspirators are accused of facilitating the unlawful “supply of an automatic monitoring system to an organization managed by the US intelligence neighborhood” by means of Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the state-controlled oil firm he operated , Lawyer Common Tarek William Saab stated in a press release.
Saab said that Telelchea had violated “nationwide sovereignty” by transferring “the brains of PDVSA” to the unnamed firm. Tellechea’s “shut associates” had been additionally arrested by authorities. They weren’t named by prosecutors.
The arrest of Tellechea, a former military colonel who served for a couple of months as oil minister, follows his abrupt resignation final week. On Friday, he resigned from his place in a social media publish, citing “well being points that require my rapid consideration.”
Individuals carry the nationwide flag of Venezuela to protest the election outcomes that awarded Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a 3rd time period, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on July 30, 2024 (Isaac Urrutia/Reuters)
He had been appointed Petroleum Minister in March 2023 however was later transferred from the Oil Ministry to the Trade Ministry as a part of President Nicolas Maduro’s huge cupboard reshuffle in August following the embattled president’s controversial election victory. Tellechea was appointed head of PDVSA in January 2023, studies Reuters information company.
Greater than 2,400 individuals had been arrested and a minimum of 27 individuals had been killed in Venezuela after protests swept the nation accusing Maduro of voter fraud.
Tellechea’s arrest is the newest scandal to rock the nation’s troubled vitality sector, which has been buffeted by a wave of prison prosecutions of prime oil executives and senior officers in latest months and years.
Venezuelan Petroleum Minister Tareck El Aissami resigned final yr after authorities arrested six senior officers linked to a corruption investigation at PDVSA. El Aissami was subsequently additionally detained.
The crackdown finally led to the arrest of a minimum of 21 businessmen and senior officers in reference to the disappearance of oil cargo proceeds totaling greater than $20 billion, the Related Press information company reported.
Venezuela’s Vice President Tareck El Aissami attends the swearing-in ceremony of the brand new board of administrators of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA in Caracas, Venezuela, January 31, 2017 (Marco Bello/Reuters)
In 2023, Saab stated his workplace had introduced it had investigated 27 “corruption schemes” at PDVSA since 2017, which it stated had resulted in additional than 200 arrests, together with the detention of a few of the nation’s prime oil executives.
Eulogio del Pino and Nelson Martinez, two different former petroleum ministers, additionally beforehand confronted corruption costs in Venezuela. Martinez later died in jail. Rafael Ramirez, one other ex-oil minister who held the publish from 2002 to 2014, can also be wished by Venezuelan authorities and is at the moment at massive in hiding in Italy. Italy has not granted Venezuela’s extradition request.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest recognized oil reserves, as soon as produced greater than three million barrels of oil per day. Manufacturing has since fallen to lower than one million barrels as a result of political tensions, sanctions and extreme mismanagement.
The US has given oil giants similar to Chevron and Repsol the inexperienced gentle to keep up a foothold within the nation by making use of for impartial permits.
Venezuelan ex-oil minister arrested for alleged ties to the US | Nicolas Maduro information
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