The Venezuelan authorities arrested two more people in the last few hours for their alleged connection to a corruption plot, bringing the total number of those detained for these events to 44, the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, reported on Sunday (04.02.2023).
“To date, the Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) has managed, together with the auxiliary bodies, to arrest 44 subjects linked to the various corruption schemes that sought to embezzle (in their criminal immorality) the national economy, harming the community in general,” Saab wrote on his Twitter account.
#AVANCE.. hasta #HOY el @MinpublicoVEN logra -junto a los órganos auxiliares- la #DETENCIÓN de 44 sujetos #vinculados a las diversas tramas de #Corrupción q buscaron #desfalcar ( en su inmoralidad delictiva) a la #economía nacional dañando a la
— Tarek William Saab (@TarekWiliamSaab) April 3, 2023
comunidad en general #MaximaPena.
The prosecutor did not offer details about the identities of these new prisoners.
Earlier, he announced the arrest of eight members of the board of the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG), including its president, Pedro Maldonado, as well as the president of the Siderúrgica del Orinoco, Néstor Astudillo, for their alleged involvement in a plot of corruption.
The CVG is a conglomerate of public companies of mining, forestry and electrical resources, among others, located in the Bolívar state, in southern Venezuela.
Last Friday, the Venezuelan National Anti-Corruption Police made a new request to the Prosecutor’s Office to prosecute a “group of officials” of the CVG, who would be “involved in serious acts of administrative corruption and embezzlement.”
On March 17, the anti-corruption body issued a first statement in which it requested the prosecution of an undetermined number of citizens who “exercised functions in the Judiciary, in the oil industry and in some municipal mayors’ offices.”
Subsequently, the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that a deputy, the head of the public cryptoactive entity, a mayor, five workers from a PDVSA vice-presidency led by Antonio Pérez -also detained-, two employees of the Digital Mining and Associated Processes Intendancy and three judges They are among those implicated in the corruption schemes and will be tried.