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image source, BBC Mundo
Claudia Díaz Guillén, when she was interviewed by BBC Mundo in Madrid in 2018.
Claudia Díaz Guillén worked for a decade very close to Hugo Chávez.
She was a member of the Honor Guard, the body responsible for the security of Venezuelan presidents, and part of the team of doctors and nurses who cared for the deceased president, who ended up naming her as National Treasurer, a position in which -according to the Prosecutor’s Office American – she managed to enrich herself through a corrupt money laundering scheme.
For these operations, Díaz Guillén, 49, is being tried this week in a court in Fort Lauderdale, in South Florida, along with her husband, Adrián José Velásquez Figueroa, who was head of the Palace Security Department. presidential office of Miraflores during the Chávez government.
The trial is the culmination of a judicial process that was made public in 2018when the couple was arrested in Madrid, where they lived, due to an extradition request from the Venezuelan authorities who accused them of alleged crimes of money laundering and illicit enrichment.
That process did not prosper because the National Court of Spain rejected Caracas’ request on the grounds that the political situation in Venezuela put Díaz Guillén’s integrity at risk. Instead, the Spanish court gave the green light to send them to the United States, where the couple was extradited this year.
But how did Díaz Guillén go from being a technical sergeant in the Bolivarian National Armed Forces to becoming Chávez’s nurse and, later, National Treasurer?
parallel careers
In an interview with BBC Mundo in December 2018, Díaz Guillén defended having accessed those public positions on his own merits.
“To me she has presented herself to me as a nurse without further ado, without any kind of preparation, and I am a woman who has preparedhas studied, and I have combined the military career very well with obtaining two degrees,” he said.
He explained that, in parallel to his military life, he studied to obtain degrees in Nursing and Law at the Central University of Venezuela.
That would have allowed him, after having joined the Guard of Honor in 2001, to join the team of doctors and nurses who cared for Chávez in 2003, with whom – he assured – he had a “merely professional” relationship that over the years led to one ” relationship of respect and friendship.
In 2011, the year Chávez was diagnosed with cancer, the venezuelan president desigit Díaz Guillén as head of the National Treasury of Venezuela and as executive secretary of the National Development Fund (Fonden).
She remained in that position until March 2013, when she was removed from office by Nicolás Maduro.
But what are they accusing her of in the US?
Millionaire transactions
According to the US Attorney’s Office, between 2011 and 2013 Díaz Guillén received bribes of at least US$65 million paid by the Venezuelan businessman Raúl Gorrín, owner of the Globovisión news channel, who is currently wanted by the US justice system.
Thus, for example, between November 2012 and May 2013, Gorrín transferred some US$8.6 million from bank accounts in Switzerland to bank accounts in Florida for the benefit of Díaz Guillén and her husband.
Supposedly the payment of these resources would have the purpose allow Gorrín to carry out currency exchange operations within the framework of the strict exchange control system established by Chávez in Venezuela.
At that time, given the huge gap between the official price of the dollar and the unofficial rate, acquiring foreign currency at the preferential price set by the government and selling it on the parallel market was an operation that could generate juicy profits.
According to the US authorities, Gorrín began carrying out these operations during the administration of Alejandro Andrade as National Treasurer of Venezuela between 2007 and 2010, before the appointment of Díaz Guillén.
In 2018, Andrade was tried and sentenced in the United States to 10 years in prison. During the trial against him, he admitted to having collected bribes that amounted to US$1,000 million.
According to US authorities, even after leaving office, Andrade continued to collect bribes from Gorrín as payment for serving as a bridge between the businessman and Díaz Guillén.
After his sentence, Andrade received a reduced sentence for collaborating with the US authorities and managed to get out of jail in February of this year. According to the US press, part of that collaboration consisted of providing evidence against Gorrín and Díaz Guillén, in whose trial he is expected to serve as a witness for the Prosecutor’s Office.
Díaz Guillén faces charges of conspiracy to launder money and money laundering. The US authorities see her husband as an instrumental piece in these operations, since allegedly part of the bribes were paid through transfers in her name or in companies owned by her.
Guilty and innocent
Unlike Andrade and many other former officials of the Hugo Chávez government who have been tried in the United States, Díaz Guillén has not admitted any guilt in the crimes what happens imputeTherefore, it is expected that his process will be more complex since the Prosecutor’s Office will have to prove his guilt.
image source, Girl US / Alamy
Alejandro Andrade was National Treasurer of Venezuela between 2007 and 2010.
In the interview she offered to BBC Mundo, Díaz Guillén assured that once Chávez fell ill, she began to receive orders from “high-ranking officials” whose execution was outside the law and which, according to her, she refused to comply with.
“In the last stage of his illness is when the minister [de Finanzas, Jorge Giordani] and I are subjected to strong pressure from the high government, which at that time Chávez could not exercise directly, already in the last months of his illness, in the last months of 2012. And that is when we began to receive instructions totally unlawfuland the minister (Giordani) and I flatly refused,” he said.
In that same interview, she assured that her heritage comes from businesses that her husband had even before he met her.
Those claims, along with the prosecution’s accusations, will be put to the test during this trial.
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