He is the treasurer of the country Claudia Patricia Diaz Guillenwhich is Chavez’s nurse and her husband; Adrian Joseph Velasquez FigueroaThe former head of security for the deceased Venezuelan former presidentwho were convicted of money laundering in a US court at the end of 2022, will receive their sentences on April 17.
Judge William P. Dimitrouleas, of the federal courts in Fort Lauderdale (40 km north of Miami), set the date in a court document issued on Monday.
The first will be condemned, which “Nurse Chavezand then he himself, according to the opinion of the judge, who had first given his opinion on the 21st of September, adjourned the day at the request of both lawyers.
Díaz Guillén and Velásquez Figueroa accused
On December 13, a jury found Díaz Guillén guilty of two of the three charges against him and Velásquez Figueroa guilty of all three charges.
Díaz Guillén, extradited from Spain last May, and Velásquez Figueroa, who suffered the same fate in October, have been asked by the United States to respond to accusations of money laundering, from acts of corruption in Venezuela related to the trade system.
Lawyers for the couple unsuccessfully tried to get Judge Dimitrouleas to accept the argument that the US government lacked “extraterritorial jurisdiction” in this case.
Both Díaz Guillén and her husband have dual Venezuelan-Spanish nationality and were close to Hugo Chávez, who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013 from cancer.
They are known as the “nurse” and “guardian” of Hugo Chávez, because she was part of his health before being named national treasurer, a position he held from 2011 to 2013, and was the head of security.
His relations with the current president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, are apparently not so good, since he settled in Spain in 2016 and say that he cannot return to the South American country.
Why do they involve Raúl Gorrín?
Venezuelan businessman Raúl Gorrín Belisario, the owner and president of the Venezuelan channel Globovisión, is wanted by the US Justice in relation to the same facts for which the two Díaz-Velásques were tried.
According to his filing on the US Justice Department’s fugitive registry, Gorrin was charged on August 16, 2017 in South Florida with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and nine counts of money laundering.
The indictment charges that Gorrín Belisario paid millions of dollars in bonuses to two Venezuelan princes—Díaz Guillén and Alejandro Andrade Cedeño, who was also the country’s treasurer—to obtain the rights to carry out foreign trade interests.
In addition to making money for official transfers, Gorrín Belisario allegedly made those expenses related to private breaks, yachts, houses, football teams, luxury watches, and fashion lines.
The former national treasurer of Venezuela, Alejandro Andrade Cedeño, who previously held the position of President Chavez and took up residence in the US after his death, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018, which he began to serve in February 2019, as agreed.
Reminder: Chávez’s nurse and her husband were convicted of 5 counts of corruption
Why is he guilty?
As part of the plea deal, Andrade accepted a $1 billion forfeiture and the forfeiture of all assets involved in the corruption scheme, including real estate, vehicles, horses, police cars, airplanes and bank accounts.
To hide the bribery scheme, Gorrín Belisario made payments through multiple shell companies and, with other partners, allegedly acquired Banco Peravia, a bank in the Dominican Republic, in order to proceed with the plan to launder the payment of bribes to Venezuelan officials.
He is also Venezuelan Gabriel Arthur Jimenez Araythe former owner of Banco Peravia in the Dominican Republic was sentenced in the US to 3 years in prison in November 2019 for conspiracy to launder money.
