Island of Barbados Hides Treasure of Samark López

The Venezuelan businessman quietly established a complex corporate structure until last February the US Treasury Department accused him of being the "front man" of the Vice President of the Republic, Tareck El Aissami. The Paradise Papers leak now reveals that his business assets are broader than those initially blocked by the US authorities and that the island of Barbados was chosen to create a sort of holding that groups the companies with which he participated in the oil and food business, among others, and whereby he was awarded millionaire contracts with the Venezuelan government.
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A
check for 8 million 500 thousand bolivars, dated September 2010, is a milestone
in the business career of Samark José López Bello. The payment —equal to 1.9 or
3.2 million dollars, based on the two official exchange rates existing at that
time in Venezuela— allowed López Bello, with only 36 years of age, to assume the
majority shareholding of Profit Corporation C.A., an engineering company founded
in the 90s. A month earlier, Armando José Salazar Gibory and Marcos Rafael
Cabello Bello had acquired it, two names that will accompany Samark López in
several of the companies that he surreptitiously accumulated until the US
Treasury Department proclaimed him the "front man" of Tareck El Aissami, vice
president of the Republic.
It
was in February when the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) accused him of
"providing material assistance" and "financial support" to El Aissami, whom the
administration of Donald Trump links to drug trafficking. US authorities
sanctioned 13 assets in up to five jurisdictions: Venezuela, Panama, the British
Virgin Islands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. "We have
frozen assets, tens of millions of dollars in assets that will have a very big
impact for El Aissami and his environment," summarized Secretary of the Treasury
Steve Mnuchin.
The
leak of the so-called Paradise Papers containing millions of documents from the
Appleby law firm in Bermuda and commercial records of several tax havens,
obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), shows that the
corporate structure established by Samark López is broader than that portrayed
by the Treasury Department. Thus, while Venezuela began its "great depression",
the entrepreneur did not stop expanding, while protecting his private treasure
on the island of Barbados. "He has many other companies that did not appear in
the designating," acknowledges his legal team that agreed to answer the
questions for this report anonymously. "Maybe they had not detected them in the
research they were doing, so they were not listed in the initial publication
they made," he adds.
From
the moment the news circulated, there was a sense that Samark López's assets
listed by OFAC were incomplete. Almost simultaneously with the publication of
the sanctions, a ship with thousands of boxes of food for the Local Supply and
Production Committee (CLAP) —the plan devised by Nicolás Maduro to face the
general shortage that has punished the population for three years— left from the
port of Veracruz, Mexico, to the port of Puerto Cabello, two hours from Caracas.
The goods were shipped by Postar Intertrade Limited, an unknown company that did
not appear in the organization chart of OFAC, but which Samark López presumed of
on his website and whereby he sealed at the end of 2016 a contract for 120
million dollars with Corporación Venezolana de Comercio Exterior (Foreign Trade
Venezuelan Corporation) (Corpovex), the state holding that centralizes
imports.
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For
the Venezuelan authorities Postar Intertrade Limited was
familiar. Before that business, Samark Lopez used it to dispatch
construction materials and even Christmas trees, as well as almost 455 thousand
tons of bulk food (yellow corn, white corn and wheat) to the Venezuelan
government from last year’s June to
December.
More than a Peaceful Caribbean Island
Initially
registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2013, Postar Intertrade Limited is a
company domiciled since 2016 in that peaceful corner of the Caribbean called
Barbados. The leaked papers also show that the owner of the 50 thousand shares
(1 dollar each) is another company called 1000 Investments Group Limited in the
jurisdiction of the British Virgin Islands and also related to Yakima Oil
Trading LLP, another property of the Venezuelan entrepreneur, registered in the
United Kingdom.
Although
Yakima Oil Trading LLP appeared in the business chart blocked by the United
States of America to Samark Lopez, neither Postar Intertrade Limited nor 1000
Investment Group Limited are in that list of assets of the Venezuelan
entrepreneur. "Postar was redomiciled to Barbados in search of a better tax
treatment, because Barbados is not on the black list (of the Seniat, tax office
in Venezuela), where he is a tax resident, and in that way, he is in compliance
with all his tax obligations," his legal team explains. They refer to the fact
that the island is not considered a tax haven in the eyes of the Venezuelan
authorities, an advantage highlighted by Trident Trust, the registrar of Samark
López’s companies, on its website to attract Venezuelan customers. "Today,
Barbados offers an attractive option in international structuring for
Venezuelans, since Barbados is not listed and has a tax treaty with
Venezuela."
The
lawyers say that 1000 Investment Group Limited "was ordered to be liquidated",
but the new holding company of the shares of Postar Intertrade Limited still
belongs to Samark López, although they did not disclose the name. "What I can
tell you is that this is his holding and of his family," they
say.
The
documentation shows that the director of Postar Intertrade Limited is Amaury
José Salazar Gibory, brother of Armando José Salazar Gibory, one of the two
partners with whom Samark López assumed control of Profit Corporation in
Venezuela. This company appears on the list of assets blocked by OFAC, but not
the company under the name of Profit C.A. Corp, also registered in Barbados.
According to the lawyers, the company was created for "projects on an
international level with the name of Profit, but the company never had any
activity, neither a bank account."
When
Profit C.A. Corp was registered in September 2015, Samark López had already
acquired all of Profit Corporation's shares in Caracas. The names that appear in
the registry of the Caribbean island were the same as in Venezuela, i.e. Samark
López with Armando José Salazar Gibory and Marcos Rafael Cabello Bello, the two
Venezuelans who allowed him to take control of the company in Venezuela since
2010. "Later in August 2010, the company was transferred to new hands, full of
skills and dynamism, with experience in the national and international market,
who acquired the entire company," summarizes the electronic portal of Profit
Corporation.
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The
site also states that as soon as the company changed hands, the contracts with
the big Venezuelan state companies arrived. "Our main customers are Petróleos de
Venezuela (Pdvsa) and its subsidiaries Pdvsa Gas and Pdvsa Petróleo," says the
website. The installation of a turbogenerator in San Joaquín Plant and the works
for Soto deep extraction plant, both in the state of Anzoátegui and contracted
by Pdvsa Gas, are two of the eight projects that Profit Corporation achieved
after the company was transferred to the hands of Samark
López.
Another
key step for these businesses was that in 2010, the company was enrolled in the
program of Social Production Companies (EPS) of Pdvsa and its subsidiaries —an
idea of ??the then president Hugo Chávez for the development of the oil
industry—, as evidenced in the mercantile file of Profit
Corporation.
Neither
the company nor Samark López have revealed the value of the contracts signed by
Profit Corporation with the Venezuelan state-owned companies, but through ImportGenius, an international
trade database, it is possible to at least verify that from June 2012 to
November 2017, the CIF value (includes insurance and freight) of the imports
made by the company was almost 18 million dollars in industrial items like
machinery and pipes, but also in toys, tableware, doors and their frames, among
other goods.
Many Companies, One Beneficiary
If
Venezuela has experienced an extended economic contraction since 2013, for
Samark López the last years were of amplification, judging from the leaked
documents of the Barbados trade registry. The papers show that in the last four
years, the Venezuelan entrepreneur was creating his own holding on the island,
business architecture like those established by big transnational corporations
like Nike and Apple in tax havens, which have been uncovered with the global
Paradise Papers investigation.
"It
is exclusively related to tax matters, but if it were the opacity issue only, no
one can really know who the shareholders of a company in Barbados are, except
the people who organized it. The aim is to have a holding company like big
companies in the world do, like Apple does," argue Samark López’s
advisors.

However,
the US authorities consider the scheme devised by the entrepreneur as
distrustful. In August, the Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network (Fincen), also attached to the Treasury
Department, mentioned Samark López as a potential case in which drug
trafficking, luxury real estate and cash shell companies are
intermingled.
The
corporate structure established by the Venezuelan entrepreneur, Yakima Trading
Corp was "re-domiciled" in Barbados in 2016, like Postar Intertrade Limited. The
company was born in 2002 in Panama, but it is in the hands of Samark López and
his partners (José Esteban Chacín Bello and Enrique Alberto Chacín Bello) since
2012, at which time its capital went from 10 thousand dollars to 10 million
dollars. Both Yakima Trading Corp and Yakima Oil Trading LLP, registered in the
United Kingdom, were mentioned by OFAC last February.
Like
Profit Corporation, with Yakima Trading Corp Samark López achieved business with
the Venezuelan oil company. Between 2015 and 2016, that company supplied Pdvsa
Industrial materials like steel coils, steel shot, welding wire and other steel
materials in at least five shipments that arrived at the port of Puerto Cabello,
in the state of Carabobo, center of the country. "We are a corporation with a
diversity of products and brands that offers solutions to major companies in the
oil, petrochemical, industrial and construction sectors, particularly in
Venezuela and the region," says the company's website.

Yakima
Oil Trading LLP is controlled, in turn, by two other companies, the final
beneficiary of which is Samark López, 2000 Investment Group Ltd, registered in
Nevis, and YPP Offshore Holdings Corp, registered in Barbados. The company was
registered on the island on November 19, 2015, and the names of Armando José
Salazar Gibory and Marcos Rafael Cabello Bello, the two who have accompanied
Samark López since 2010 in Profit Corporation, appeared again in the board. "No
share in the capital of the company will be transferred without the approval of
the directors of the company or a committee of said directors, evidenced by
resolution," says one of the documents.
Also
in November 19, 2015, Samark López and the two partners created companies with
similar names in Barbados, namely, YPP Latam Holdings Corp and YPP Us Holdings
Corp, both aimed at "holding shares of a Venezuelan company." The legal team
ensures that the objective of the companies under the name of YPP was to act as
"holdings to hold the shares of operating companies".
In
addition to this network, there are at least two other companies, October
Ventures Ltd, registered on October 17, 2014, and Food Trading Group Corp,
registered on March 13, 2015. In the first, Armando José Salazar Gibory and
Marcos Rafael Cabello Bello reappear as directors, while in the second, these
positions are held by José Esteban Chacín Bello and Enrique Alberto Chacín
Bello. According to the attorneys of Samark López, neither of these companies
specified the businesses for which they were created. It is also not clear if at
any time these two and the rest of the companies in Barbados will be able to
carry out any activity. By not being listed by OFAC they can work, as long as
they do not make transactions in dollars or use the US financial system.
However, the brisk expansion of Samark López seems to have slowed down.
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The
accusation of the Treasury Department has knocked down or, at least, paralyzed
the plans of the entrepreneur. He has personally acknowledged that after the
accusation of the US authorities, the business of Postar Intertrade Limited with
Corpovex for the supply of food for the Local Supply and Production Committee
(CLAP) was suspended and that he has put all his businesses on "stand by",
something that his lawyers repeat. "Right now, none of the companies are
formally active, none are operating. They are on standby until the issue of the
sanctions is resolved." The administration of Donald Trump has the last
word.