The Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López denied this Monday that he was linked to the case of alleged corruption.PDVSA-Crypto‘after the attorney general of Venezuela, Tarek William Saabrelated him to “a political conspiracy”—along with Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio and Carlos Ocariz—with connection to said plot.
“The dictatorship, always inventing and trying to divert attention“, he stated in an online press conference in which he presented his research for the Wilson Center in Washington ‘Crypto in Venezuela: Two sides of a coin’, in which he analyzes the way in which this tool has been used in the country.
According to the prosecutor, the aforementioned opponents, in connivance with the United States and El Aissami, planned to “dissolve the State by any undemocratic means, impose and continue with the sanctions that have done so much damage to the humble worker and companies.”
During the explanation of his study, the Caracas politician assured that the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro used cryptocurrencies to “evade sanctions, launder money and deepen corruption”, which is why he considers that the country’s financial system is vulnerable and that it is “ caged and controlled.”
In any case, he was “enthusiastic” about the presidential elections that will be held in Venezuela on July 28, since he believes that the majority of the population will “vote in favor of change” to end the Maduro dictatorship.
“We are committed to the electoral route“, assured the leader of the Voluntad Popular (VP) party, while emphasizing his support for Edmundo González Urrutia, the ratified candidate of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the main opposition coalition in Venezuela.
“We Venezuelans want to vote in favor of change. Many surveys say that the intention to vote is much higher than in the last 15 years because there is a gigantic mobilization,” López noted.
The opponent has been exiled in Spain since 2020, after being sentenced to more than 13 years in prison in his country for supporting the 2014 opposition revolts against Maduro.
The first vice president of the United Party of Venezuela (PSUV), God given hairrequested this Monday “an accompanying criminal action” against the five opponents who were disqualified, for any position, by the Comptroller General of Venezuela on April 24, which did not explain the reasons why they were disqualified.
“That this administrative disqualification is now accompanied by the exercise of criminal justice. That money belongs to the Venezuelans. They are corrupt (…) they handed over Citgo (…) they handed over our gold in exchange for being given a commission (…) to pay and return everything they have to return (…) it is a danger to public finances,” Cabello said during a PSUV press conference, accusing those disqualified of corruption crimes.
The last five disqualified are the mayor of the El Hatillo municipality (Miranda state, north), Elias Sayeghthe former deputy Thomas Guanipa and the former mayors Jose Fernandez and Carlos Ocariz -sanctioned until 2039-, and the former parliamentarian Juan Caldera disqualified for 12 months.
The attorney general, Tarek William Saab, related Ocariz as part of a “political conspiracy” in the PDVSA-Cripto case, in which, since March 2023, “a network of senior officials, many of them subsidiary presidents of PDVSA, who after being arrested declared how they used their positions to carry out illegal oil operations.”
(With information from EFE)
