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The Venezuelan socialist government announced on Tuesday the arrest of former Oil Minister Tarek El Aissami, who was close to authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro, on corruption charges.
Former Finance Minister Simón Zerpa and Sarmark Lopez, a businessman and partner of El Aissami, were also arrested as part of the investigation into alleged corruption at major state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), an important source of government revenue.
Tarek William Saab, Venezuela's attorney general, said in a press conference on Tuesday that El Aissami and his accomplices were involved in a scheme to directly manage crude oil shipments to avoid US sanctions, without sending payments through the country's central bank. . Doing so also allowed them to speculate in currency markets, Saab claimed.
Saab said the three men, who were staunch allies of Maduro, face charges of treason, money laundering and misdirection of public funds. Saab said they were part of a gang of more than 50 people planning to “destroy Venezuela's economy” from both Venezuela and the United States, and that “the way these three people behaved is an economic conspiracy.”
Photos published by the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications on Tuesday showed El Aissami handcuffed and wearing a black shirt and gray pants, accompanied by police officers wearing masks along the hallway.
El Aissami has not appeared in public since resigning from his position as oil minister in March 2023 amid a broader corruption investigation at PDVSA. Observers see the investigation as a purge by Maduro of his former allies, which has exposed tensions at the highest levels of government.
El Aissami, who used his Syrian and Lebanese origins to open new trade channels with Iran and Turkey while under Maduro's good graces, is also wanted on charges of facilitating drug smuggling from Venezuela by the US government, which has offered a $10 million reward. Zerpa and Lopez are also subject to US sanctions.
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, although economic mismanagement and corruption have stifled production. Corruption investigations inside Venezuela are likely to raise eyebrows, with Transparency International ranking the South American country 177 out of 180 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index.
The arrests announced on Tuesday come at a sensitive time for Maduro, who is running for re-election in July this year. In order to entice Maduro into allowing “free and fair” elections, Washington eased tough sanctions on the country's oil, gas and mining sectors with the warning that they would be reimposed on April 18 if political reforms are not taken.
The government's Supreme Court has since upheld a ban on opposition leader Maria Corina Machado running as a candidate, while several of her aides have been arrested, prompting the US to threaten to reimpose sanctions later this month.
