Odebrecht Confessions

Odebrecht’s bribes also reached Pdvsa Agrícola, and among the beneficiaries, Egly Ramírez, founder of Pdval and uncle of former president of PDVSA Rafael Ramírez, stands out. Marcio Faria, one of the senior managers of the Brazilian construction company, confessed that on December 14, in an interrogation t in the courts of the State of Paraiba, northeast of Brazil.

According to the testimony of Faría, the subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela commissioned ethanol plants, which –as already informed on this platform– apart from bribes and commissions, they did not even completed them.

The works were half completed in the states of Barinas, Cojedes, Portuguesa and Trujillo. That is not the case of the disbursements to a Brazilian intermediary called Osvaldo Basteri, who then distributed them to the entire board of directors of Pdvsa Agrícola. "The payments to that man were made through these companies, for which they used fictitious service provision contracts between us and Osvaldo's companies," he said. "The payments were made through Hilberto Silva [head of the Structured Operations Sector]. I learned that the amount of the bribe was around 6% on the amounts received, not the ??contracted amounts.

Odebrecht managing director in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, pointed to an intermediary as a key player in the framework of Venezuelan corruption. His name was Luis Delgado and coincides with his number two, Alessandro Dias Gomes, at the time of pointing him out as an intermediary that allowed him to forge documents of the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. "I can say that he was efficient because we had access. We have privileged access to drafts of action memoranda, and we were able to influence and even change the wording."

Although Azevedo had a direct line with Chávez, the doors of the government were closed when the president became ill. It was then that the intermediary appeared. "He contacted me and said, ‘I know that you are having difficulties with the Metro works. I have free access and can help you have the invoices pending released."

With Hugo Chavez ill, the Brazilians lost contact with the National Government. Several accounts were paid late to representatives of the company, until they found an intermediary who processed the payments in exchange for 2% of the amount of the invoices.

"They had not received the invoices for the Metro works for six months; hence, there was a large list of overdue invoices. I agreed with him that he would receive two percent of each invoice that he help us collect," confessed another manager of the company in Caracas, Alessandro Días Gómes, in an interrogation in the Brazilian courts of Sergipe, where the justice of that country summoned the witnesses of the Venezuelan case.

His testimony shows that in addition to overpricing and political favors, Odebrecht's machinery included commissions to intermediaries and lobbyists to expedite their payments.

Odebrecht managed to obtain the drafts of more than one Action Memorandum before they were sent to former President Hugo Chávez, to adjust quotations and change amounts to its benefit.

They did it through an official named Luis Delgado, whom Switzerland linked with over $ 40 million that ended up in accounts of the wife and the mother-in-law of former Minister of Land Transport and former Metro president Haiman El Troudi, according to another investigation published on this same platform.

"Sometimes, he gave the drafts of the Action Memoranda," said the company's manager, Alessandro Dias Gomes, who first took charge of the works of Metro de Caracas and then inherited the position of managing director in Venezuela, which Euzenando Azevedo held for almost 10 years. "He gave me the drafts of the documents. That allowed me to have influence over them by indicating that we needed more resources in certain A or B work."

Luis Delgado was a kind of Trojan horse that Odebrecht found in Caracas to speed up payments within the Venezuelan Government and even to leak information and documents that would later worked for the benefit of the company. No wonder, between 2011 and 2015, he received and channeled 100 million dollars in commissions deposited in an account of the Meinl Bank of Antigua and Barbuda.

"He received a total of around 100 million dollars over those four years," said director Alessandro Dias Gomes. But that total was far from being for him. It was distributed. "When payments were late, he said, "Press to have my payments because that is not for me, I have a group of people waiting, and if they get upset, it will adversely affect your interests."

In Venezuela, Odebrecht was lucky to have direct access to former President Hugo Chávez. No wonder, only in the Bolivarian Republic, an agent has the power to dispose of oil surpluses without having to wait for the approval of the Legislative.

This was stated by the so-called viceroy of Odebrecht in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, who —among the other 78 "rewarded informers", who decided to collaborate with justice— has become the key witness of the Venezuelan plot. "These large works were paid or are managed through parafiscal funds that exist in Venezuela in a different way than other countries," he said. "In Venezuela, there are parafiscal funds that are administered directly by the President of the Republic, and it is through these funds that the central government allocates resources for investment in works."

The more than 30 works that Chavismo assigned to Odebrecht total 20 billion dollars, many of which were not even concluded in the Venezuelan case.

Furthermore, most were arbitrarily assigned. "Tendered at about 7 billion dollars and directly contracted at about 13 billion dollars." This was said by the representative of the company, Euzenando Azevedo, during his interrogation in December 2016 before the Brazilian justice, in exchange for procedural benefits.

The first bid that the Brazilians won was to build Line 4 of the Metro de Caracas, then the extension of Line 3 and the Metro de Los Teques, but from there, they were directly awarded the most emblematic works of the Government. "President Chávez hired us directly to make the second bridge over the Orinoco River. He hired us later, when we finished the second bridge, to make the third bridge. He hired us to build the Nigale bridge and then for some cable cars."

The so-called viceroy of Odebrecht in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, went to the Hotel Nacional de Brasilia for Hugo Chávez, on his first visit as president-elect, to back down the contracts previously awarded to a Spanish consortium to build Line 4 of Metro of Caracas. "I undertake to ask President Caldera, as soon as arrive in Venezuela, to at least suspend the contracting process for me to contract," the president promised.

That was the first great success of Azevedo who gradually gained free access to the Miraflores Palace. He arrived in Caracas in 1994 and since then managed that Odebrecht moved from building the Lago Mall de Maracaibo to becoming the number one contractor of the Bolivarian revolution.

No wonder his position as managing director did not have a superior. The jurisdiction of Odebrecht Vice President for Latin America and Africa, Luiz Mamery, ran from Angola and Mozambique, to Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. But Venezuela was a different matter, where Azevedo was in charge of Chávez.

Odebrecht collaborated on two occasions with the ex-governor of the State of Bolívar, Francisco Rangel Gómez. "I collaborated twice," Azevedo told the Brazilian justice. "He always undertook to ask to prioritize the development of our works whenever he had high-level meetings with the Government."

The same happened with several mayors of the State of Miranda, as it is the region where the Metro Caracas-Guarenas-Guatire is still promised. In his testimony, the "viceroy" of Odebrecht mentioned contributions to the campaigns of former mayor of Los Teques, Francisco Garcés, and of his counterpart in the Sucre municipality, the opponent Carlos Ocariz, as well as of the mayor Farith Fraija, who won the Mayor's Office of Carrizal last year after being defeated in the previous period despite of the economic support of the Brazilians.

Even when there were no presidential elections, Odebrecht spent 3 million dollars to support regional campaigns in Venezuela, and among them stands out the number two of Chavez, Diosdado Cabello. "We helped, for example, in Los Teques municipality, the candidate for governor, Diosdado Cabello," confirmed Azevedo.

Opposition leaders also stand out, like the former governors of the State of Zulia, Manuel Rosales and Pablo Pérez, and the former metropolitan mayor, Antonio Ledezma, now in exile. On the other side, Chavismo financed the former mayor of Maracaibo Gian Carlo Di Martino, the former governor of Bolívar, Francisco Rangel Gómez, and the current Minister of Education, Elías Jaua.

There is a particular reference to the former leader of the Un Nuevo Tiempo (A New Era) party, William Ojeda, who was given money so that he would focus his efforts on the newspaper Últimas Noticias. "We helped a journalist who was always a candidate, William Ojeda, who had a very important column in the most important newspaper in Venezuela. What for? To help him so that he did not attack us in the newspaper ".

Odebrecht collaborated 17 million dollars for the presidential campaigns of the opposition led by former governor of the State of Miranda, Henrique Capriles. In 2012, Odebrecht gave the first 2 million dollars and in April of the following year, it contributed another 15 million.

The approach began –as it had been leaked in July 2017 on this platform– thanks to a subcontractor from Odebrecht, close to Capriles, called Benito Rodríguez. The first encounters took place at his home. There, the Brazilians only asked not to terminate the contracts signed in the time of Hugo Chávez.

"I told him that I needed him to introduce me to the candidate," said the company's managing director, Euzenando Azevendo, in his testimony before the Brazilian justice. "After a week or a week and a half, he called me and I went to his home again, and the candidate was there."

Odebrecht’s representative in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, met three times with former governor Henrique Capriles, according to the testimony he gave to Brazilian prosecutors in the courts of the northeastern state of Sergipe.

He never talked about money with Capriles, but after meeting him, he agreed with his representative, Benito Rodríguez, to make a first contribution in the 2012 campaign. "I agreed to give a contribution of 2 million dollars divided into several parts."

The second meeting, according to Azevedo, was in a room of the Pestana Hotel in Caracas, to prevent Chavism from knowing that the Brazilians were beginning to collaborate with the opposition. "I arrived a little earlier, two hours before. I went to the apartment, then they arrived and there he ratified his commitment that if he won, he would not take reprisals."

The most exciting encounter between Azevedo and Capriles was in the apartment of the former governor of Miranda. That was stated in Brazil by the Odebrecht officer before the prosecutors in the case. "Very close to the election, a week, he called me and invited me to his home," he said. "I received a call from one of his advisers saying, ‘Governor Henrique Capriles wants to talk to you at his home and he set an hour, at night’."

Odebrecht had already deposited 15 million for the 2013 campaign in bank accounts abroad, according to the guidelines provided by the then representative of Capriles, Benito Rodríguez. As a gesture of gratitude, the candidate invited Azevedo to his home. "In a very affectionate way, he thanked me for everything I had done and emphasized that if he won, he would not take any attitude against our contracts," he said. "It is an honor to have received this from the President of the Republic," he added after Capriles himself brought him a glass of water.

Sitting on the defendants' bench, Odebrecht's key witness in Venezuela, its managing director in the country, Euzenando Azevedo, narrated in December 2016 the details of how the Brazilian construction giant financed the first electoral campaign of Nicolás Maduro.

Then he told the story of how he processed 35 million dollars for an emissary of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. But, in the meantime, he formalized in a Brazilian court what some already murmured in Venezuela, "Chávez died in Cuba."

"Shortly before, he felt he was going to die," he told the prosecutors in the city of Bahia. "He appointed on national radio and television the then Vice President of the Republic as his substitute in the event something happened to him on his last trip to Cuba, from which he did not return."

It was in Caracas, at Café Gourmet in Las Mercedes, where Euzenando Azevedo, the former officer of Odebrecht in Venezuela, closed the deal with the Venezuelan government official, Américo Mata, a key element in the Chavista framework, who climb steps to the side of the Minister of Education, Elías Jaua, and three months ago left the anonymity when the United States of America included him in the sanctions list of the Department of the Treasury.

There, in that café, –as already leaked in July 2017 on this platform– the company representative agreed to pay the 35 million dollars in exchange for a guaranteed continuity of their works. "I had to contribute to keep the contracts." Otherwise, it was uphill, he responded to the Brazilian prosecutors who interrogated him about the financing of Maduro's first electoral campaign in the courts of the Brazilian state of Sergipe.

The transfers to Nicolás’ campaign were made to companies registered abroad. The emissary of the Venezuelan president gave the guidelines and Odebrecht immediately activated its so-called Department of Structured Operations, a euphemism that the Brazilian company used to avoid presenting it as its unit of bribes and commissions.

Maduro's emissary, Américo Mata - later named "protector of the State of Miranda " - gave the names of the companies and the rest of the work corresponded to the Brazilians.”Systematically, he gave instructions and we made the transfers," summarized Azevedo.

He did not specify, however, the names or information of the companies. Unlike witnesses from other countries, in the case of Venezuela, there were few witnesses in the interrogations and Azevedo, the main one, said he did not have details about most of the companies and bank transfers...

(*)This is a work researched and published by the Structured Journalistic Research Network, which includes journalists from IDL-Reporters in Peru, La Prensa of Panama, La Nación of Argentina, Sudestada in Uruguay, Fifth Element Lab in Mexico, and Armando.info in Venezuela.