“I assure you, even more so at this moment, when the country calls not only for justice but also for the strengthening of the institutions, we will apply the full weight of the law against these individuals,” Saab said. But officials are rarely held accountable - a major irritant to citizens, the majority of whom live on $1.90 a day, the international benchmark of extreme poverty. along with El Aissami on money laundering charges in 2020.Ĭorruption has long been rampant in Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest petroleum reserves.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab in a radio interview Monday said that at least a half dozen officials, including people affiliated with PDVSA, had been arrested, and he expected more to be detained.Īmong those arrested is Joselit Ramirez, a cryptocurrency regulator who was indicted in the U.S. Venezuela’s National Anti-Corruption Police last week announced an investigation into unidentified public officials in the oil industry, the justice system and some local governments. Hours after El Aissami revealed his resignation on Twitter, President Nicolás Maduro called his government’s fight against corruption “bitter” and “painful.” He said he accepted the resignation “to facilitate all the investigations that should result in the establishment of the truth, the punishment of the culprits, and justice in all these cases.” “This is really a chance for the regime to sideline someone that it felt for some reason was a danger to it in the moment and to continue perpetuating acts of corruption once particular individuals have been forced out of the political scene.” “Rule of law is not being advanced here,” Berg added. “Obviously, they are giving it the patina of an anti-corruption probe,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. He was seen as a loyal ruling party member and considered a key figure in the government’s efforts to evade punishing international economic sanctions.Īnd he led the state oil company PDVSA in a Venezuelan business sector widely considered to be corrupt - in a country where embezzelment, bribery, money laundering and other wrongdoing are a lifestyle. Tareck El Aissami’s announcement Monday was shocking on multiple counts.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - The man responsible for running Venezuela’s oil industry - the one that pays for virtually everything in the troubled country, from subsidized food to ridiculously cheap gas - has quit amid investigations into alleged corruption among officials in various parts of the government.
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