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 an organization run by US intelligence companies was arrested days after his resignation.
Pedro Tellechea, Venezuela’s former oil minister and state oil government, was arrested on Sunday, the AFP information company reported. Particulars of his arrest have been introduced Monday.
Tellechea and his accomplices are accused of facilitating the “unlawful supply of an automatic management system” to an organization managed by the USA intelligence companies” by Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the state oil firm that he operated, the Legal professional Normal said. Tarek William Saab stated in an announcement.
Saab claimed that Telelchea had violated “nationwide sovereignty” by handing over “the brains of PDVSA” to the unnamed firm. Tellechea’s “closest collaborators” have been additionally detained by the authorities. Prosecutors didn’t title them.
The arrest of Tellechea, a former military colonel who served as oil minister for just a few months, comes shortly after his abrupt resignation final week. In a social media put up on Friday, he resigned from his place, citing “well being points that require my fast consideration.”
He had been appointed Minister of Petroleum in March 2023, however was later moved from the Ministry of Petroleum to the Ministry of Trade as a part of President Nicolás Maduro’s cupboard reshuffle in August after the president’s disputed election victory. Tellechea was appointed director of PDVSA in January 2023, the Reuters information company reported.
Greater than 2,400 folks have been arrested and at the very least 27 folks died in Venezuela after protests engulfed the nation accusing Maduro of electoral fraud.
Tellechea’s arrest is the newest scandal to rock the nation’s troubled vitality sector, which has been reeling in latest months and years from a sequence of prison proceedings in opposition to senior managers and oil officers.
Venezuelan Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami resigned final yr after authorities detained six high-level officers linked to a corruption investigation at PDVSA. Later, El Aissami was additionally arrested.
The crackdown finally led to the arrest of at the very least 21 businessmen and senior officers linked to the disappearance of income from oil shipments, totaling greater than $20 billion, The Related Press information company reported.
In 2023, Saab stated his workplace introduced that it had investigated 27 “corruption schemes” at PDVSA since 2017, which he famous had resulted in additional than 200 arrests, together with the detention of a number of the nation’s high oil executives.
Eulogio del Pino and Nelson Martínez, two different former oil ministers, additionally beforehand confronted corruption expenses in Venezuela. Martínez later died in jail. Rafael Ramírez, one other former Minister of Petroleum who held the place from 2002 to 2014, can also be needed by Venezuelan authorities and is at the moment a fugitive, hiding in Italy. Italy has not agreed to 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 plummeted to lower than one million barrels amid political tensions, sanctions and gross mismanagement.
The USA has given the inexperienced mild to grease giants akin to Chevron and Repsol to keep up their presence within the nation by making use of for impartial licenses.
