A Venezuelan court has ordered the arrest of 30 bank executives for alleged violations at seven banks that have been taken over by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government.
Venezuelan prosecutors have also asked Interpol for help seeking the capture of nine of the suspects who are thought to have fled the country.
Chavez said on Monday that “there are no sacred cows here,” after the arrest of Banco Real president Arne Chacon, a brother of Science and Technology Minister Jesse Chacon, who resigned over the scandal.
Chavez defended his former aide, saying he didn’t have anything to do with his brother’s actions.
As for Arne Chacon, Chavez said: “He’s jailed very well and should stay there.”
Chavez questioned how Chacon had come from owning little to being a bank president.
Prosecutors said six of the suspects had been detained. A court on Monday ordered the arrest of three more bank executives, prosecutors said in a statement, bringing to 30 the number of arrests sought in the banking scandal that has implicated business people with links to the government.
Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz vowed a thorough investigation, saying in a televised interview on Monday night that “we’re going to see more” court orders against suspects.
Responding to a question during the interview, she acknowledged that prosecutors are investigating the role of Venezuela’s securities commission.
The investigation continues to expand “and things are getting clearer,” Ortega Diaz said.
Seven banks have been shut down since Nov. 30, and authorities allege widespread irregularities that put some of them in financial trouble.
Chavez said authorities will seize businesses from bank owners in order to recoup bank losses caused by them.
Others among those arrested include Ricardo Fernandez, who led a group of investors that recently bought four of the seized banks — Canarias, Confederado, Bolivar and ProVivienda (BanPro).
Fernandez, who had a lucrative business selling food to state-run subsidized markets, is charged with misappropriating deposits and providing loans to other businesses in which he was an investor.
The charge carries a minimum sentence of nine years in prison, Ortega Diaz said.
The other three banks taken over by the government — Central Banco Universal, Baninvest Banco de Inversion and Banco Real — were purchased earlier this year by businessman Pedro Torres Ciliberto, who Chavez said is now in Miami.
Two of the banks — Canarias and BanPro — are to be permanently shut down and their assets sold off. Chavez said four other banks — Bolivar, Confederado, Central and Real — will be relaunched as part of the state banking system, three of them as part of a new state-run bank called Banco Bicentenario.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS