Venezuela arrests 21 in corruption crackdown, 11 more wanted in relation to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA
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One of the main points of the current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's administration is to fight corruption and take the menace to the bearest minimum or totally eliminate it from the South American country.
One of the loopholes through which perpetrators commit this crime is in the oil sector and Venezuela is one of OPEC's largest oil producer, which indicates that the sector have oil deals worth billions of dollars on a daily basis.
During this oil deals most officials in-charge of the deals usually portrayed corrupt tendencies and amass wealth for themselves in a government owned ventures.
With the level of corruption in the sector the government have created a strategy to crackdown those corrupt officials in the sector. Recently, the strategy through proper investigations have led to the arrest and prosecution of more than 200 people associated with corruption related cases.
An expanding anti-corruption probe in Venezuela has led to the detention of 10 officials and 11 businessmen, the country's attorney general said on Saturday, adding that arrest warrants for 11 more people have been issued.
The investigation, which began in October, is focused on state oil company PDVSA, a government entity supervising crypto currency operations, and the judiciary. This week, it led to the resignation of the country's powerful oil minister, Tareck El Aissami, who had served the government for two.
According to the Attorney General Tarek Saab, this is one of the greatest plot to bring to book those who have benefited from corruption and this includes, businessmen, young people as well officials. This particular crackdown include a mafia woman who is involved in corruption and money laundering.
PDVSA has accumulated $21.2 billion in commercial accounts receivable since 2020 including $3.6 billion potentially unrecoverable, documents viewed by Reuters showed this week, after turning to dozens of little known intermediaries to export its oil under U.S. sanctions.
The 21 people arrested are accused of of appropriation of public assets, money laundering, influence peddling and criminal association. If the officials are found guilty of the alleged crimes, they'll be facing treason charges, said the attorney general.
I'll conclude by saying that fighting corruption in a system is the best thing that can happen to a society. Oil revenues has always attracted corrupt people in the system and fighting them means more infrastructural development for the country. Prosecuting public officials will also serve as deterrence to others who intend to commit such crimes in the future.