In April 2021, AP reported that the former official was related to a corruption case involving Carlos Urbano Fermín, a Venezuelan businessman.
Courtesy | It could be involved in bribery cases, according to the Miami Prosecutor’s Office
Prosecutors in Miami, United States, are taking “additional investigative measures” against the lawyer and former Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz for alleged involvement in a bribery case, according to journalist Joshua Goodman, a correspondent for The Associated Press (AP).
In April 2021, AP reported that the former official was related to a corruption case involving Carlos Urbano Fermín, a Venezuelan businessman. At that time, Fermín claimed to have paid approximately $ 1 million to a “high-ranking prosecutor” in Venezuela, to avoid investigations into his contracts with the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA).
The businessman also stated that his companies obtained a significant number of contracts for “three joint ventures” from PDVSA between 2012 and 2016, with foreign oil companies. These included China National Petroleum Company, Rosneft of Russia and Total de France SA.
“In early 2017, Ortega’s office investigated the award of contracts with joint ventures in the Orinoco belt, which are located on the largest oil reserves in the world, according to Fermín’s statement. Around the same time, he was approached by a lawyer in Venezuela who was close to the anonymous high-ranking prosecutor with the promise that he could quash any criminal investigation, “The Associated Press reported last year.
Fermín confessed to having transferred around a million dollars to accounts of the Venezuelan official and a payment of one hundred thousand dollars to a bank in Coral Gables, a city located in Florida. The Venezuelan jurist dismissed the AP report a day after its publication.
“In a new filing, Miami prosecutors say they are taking ‘additional key investigative steps’ against a senior Venezuelan official implicated in a bribery case. The anonymous official was previously identified as former Attorney General Luisa Ortega, an enemy of Maduro, “Goodman posted on his official Twitter account on Wednesday. So far, Ortega Díaz has not commented on the news.
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