At least two of the four defendants convicted of working as illegal foreign agents in Florida for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the Suitcase-Gate Scandal had ties to an international criminal organization which was operating successfully in Venezuela, and with seeming official impunity, long before Chavez himself came to power, The MadCowMorningNews has learned.
Both the recently-convicted Franklin Duran, and Carlos Kauffmann, who pled guilty before the trial, took part in a $7 billion bank scandal during the mid-1990's that involved insiders looting Venezuelan banks, and led more than 200 Venezuelan bankers to flee Caracas for exile in Miami.
Duran and Kauffman began their meteoric rise to commanding fortunes, by their mid-30's, of $100 million in Kauffmann's case, and a staggering $800 million in Duran's, in the banking scandal.
Also looted, ironically, was the Venezuelan government's response to the looting: the government institution to oversee banks and ensure they weren't looted again.
"Guido the Bagman" Discovers La Revolution
When a U.S. jury in Miami recently convicted Venezuelan businessman Franklin Duran in the Suitcase-Gate Trial, the verdict raised more questions than it answered.
The scandal, which soon became well-known throughout Latin America, began last year with the discovery of a mysterious suitcase filled with $800,000 in cash at an airport in Buenos Aires.
The $800,000, as well as $4.5 million in cash in a second suitcase which wasn't discovered, according to testimony in the trial, was a bribe--or, more charitably, a token of his esteem-- from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez to Nestor Kirchner and wife Cristina, the former and current Presidents of Argentina, three days in advance of a state visit by Chavez last year.
Miami "businessman" Guido Antonini Wilson, hereafter known as "Guido the Bagman," said it was his suitcase. And then began the cover-up attempt that ended when four Venezuelan men were eventually convicted of attempting to secure Guido's silence about the source of the loot.
From the start, observers saw the purpose of the prosecution as being to embarrass and point a finger at corruption in the government of Venezuela's current President (and Bush Administration bete noire) Hugo Chavez.
But while Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" was being singled out by Bush Administration prosecutors as the source of the corruption, the men acting on Chavez's behalf have connections which have so far been ignored to scandals which occurred under past Venezuelan Presidents as well.
~ more... ~
No comments:
Post a Comment