A Venezuelan bondholder assesses the forfeiture of property in the United States from Raul Guerin, a businessman associated with the Chavista dictatorship.

A Venezuelan unpaid bond holder contemplates taking over the property in Florida belonging to Raúl Goren, a media mogul who was accused by US prosecutors of bribing officials in Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship to obtain contracts, according to court documents.

The potential measure is Casa Express Corp., a little-known Florida company that was among the first to sue the South American country that, in the midst of the crisis, defaulted on its bonds, It shows how creditors are increasingly looking for assets linked to Venezuela to pay off their debts.

A judge in the Southern District of New York ruled in November 2020 that Casa Express was entitled to collect $43.2 million from Venezuela in obligations for two bonds that the state stopped canceling in 2018.

In August 2021, the company registered this ruling in a federal court in Florida, where two companies are registered in Delaware, according to the United States. owned or controlled by Gorrín such as Posh 8 Dynamic Inc, Planet 2 Reaching Inc, Documents show that they own condominiums in Miami-Dade County.

In a filing filed on October 1, the corporate lawyer said Casa Express forced companies to Submitting an affidavit explaining the reason for not applying some real estate to fulfill the judgment.

US prosecutors charged Goren in 2018 with: Owner of the Venezuelan TV channel Globovision, for violating US anti-corruption laws by paying $150 million in bribes to officials of the Venezuelan dictatorship. For the right to engage in profitable foreign exchange transactions and money laundering through US assets.

Posh 8 Dynamic and Planet 2 Reaching has been approved by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which in 2019 banned US companies from doing business with it.. Oslander said Casa Express would need an OFAC license to seize the assets.

The apartments owned by Posh 8 Dynamic and Planet 2 Reaching are worth $6.2 million and $11.8 million, respectively.Show property records.

According to a US judge, Goren “Offered, promised, allowed and made corrupt payments to Venezuelan government officials, including two National Trustees in order to secure an undue advantage in obtaining the right to conduct foreign exchange transactions at favorable rates and withholding it.”

US authorities suspect that he allegedly paid millions of dollars to former Chavismo treasurers. Alejandro Andrade And Claudia Patricia Diaz, actually Adrián José Velásquez Figueroa. Adrian Jose Velasquez Figueroa, the former security chief of the late president Hugo Chavezfor her own good.

To conceal the payments, Gorrín used fictitious company accounts, always according to the indictment account that appears in documents sent by the United States, which state that it requested payments between 2011 and 2013 “at least $65 million,” and that He also bought and paid for private jets, yachts, palaces, hero horses, and luxury watches.

Andrade Sedinho, also a Venezuelan national, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and, as part of a plea agreement, He admitted that he received more than a billion dollars in bribes from Guren and other participants “in exchange for the use of their positions as trustee of the Venezuelan National Fund for their selection to conduct currency exchange transactions at rates favorable to the country.”

To appear legitimate, Guren had exchanged electronic correspondence with the suppliers, though “Had his employees kept a spreadsheet for the purposes of tracking certain bribe payments,” Including Velázquez Figueroa.

Guren reportedly continued to provide money and “valuables” to the couple (Andrade and Diaz) even after Diaz stepped down as head of Venezuela’s National Treasury Office, “in exchange for her previous assistance in providing employment benefits.”

Thus, in 2013, there are two batches, from 281.051 And 4 million of dollars from bank accounts in Switzerland in the name of companies owned by Gorrín located in Pánama to Velásquez Figueroa companies.

After allegations of money laundering and corruption, in 2019 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has included Goren on its Most Wanted Person list.

(With information from Reuters and EFE)

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