In the Caribbean, a Buoy Floats for Chavismo's Finances
A small bank in Antigua and Barbuda, but controlled by Venezuelans, is at the center of some of the financial operations of Nicolas Maduro’s regime. Created in 2008 and with a diffuse trace for years, North International Bank began to take off in 2016 when it was authorized to operate in Caracas. Since then, it has been channeling millions of dollars to and from the coffers of the revolutionary ‘nomenklatura.’
Este reportaje se encuentra disponible también en:
In the absence of an air bridge, there is a financial
corridor between Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda. Millions of dollars associated
with contracts of the Chavismo with
cash shell companies and correspondent operations pass through some small banks
in the also small island nation of the Lesser Antilles. At the same time, and in
equal measure, the relationship between the governments of Nicolas Maduro and
Gaston Browne is growing closer.
One of such banks is the North International Bank (NIB),
based in Antigua, but controlled by Venezuelan executives. In August 2016, the
Venezuelan Superintendency of Banking Institutions (Sudeban) authorized the bank
to appoint a representative in Caracas. “Promoting and informing Venezuelan
residents of the products and services” that the bank “may offer” was one of the
justifications of the Venezuelan banking regulator for granting the license
contained in Official Gazette 40.970 of August 19, 2016.
At the time when the authorization was given, the United
States had not applied economic sanctions against the chavista regime. However, Maduro’s
administration was quick to use the services of North International Bank as a
correspondent bank for state financial entities, such as Banco del Tesoro or
Banco del Desarrollo Social (Bandes), and for the millionaire payments to
intermediaries contracted to supply food for the Local Supply and Production
Committees (Clap). Antigua is one of the jurisdictions with the highest banking
secrecy, according to the index of the NGO Tax Justice Network.
For example, just eleven months after the approval by
Sudeban, $425 million of a payment from Nicolas Maduro’s government to Group
Grand Limited began passing through a bank account in North International
Bank. Group Grand
Limited is the company registered in Hong Kong behind which Colombian
businessmen Alex Saab Moran and Alvaro Pulido Vargas hid in order to control
imports for the Claps with Mexican products, from the very beginning of the
state plan devised by Maduro.
The details of that transaction are in contract
CPVX-CJ-CONT-0086-2017 entered into by and between the state-owned Corporacion
Venezolana de Comercio Exterior (Corpovex) (Venezuelan Foreign Trade
Corporation), responsible for centralizing public imports, and the Hong Kong
company. The document shows North International Bank and the Dutch Rabobank as
channels of the transaction that would end in the coffers of Group Grand
Limited, 50% of which was paid in advance.
The contract also shows that the Colombian duo, widely favored by Nicolas
Maduro with millionaire businesses since 2013, charged $37 for each Clap
box, $3 more than for each combo from a previous contract. A year later, in
October 2018, the Attorney General’s Office of Mexico reported irregularities,
like overbilling or poor quality of the shipments of Group Grand Limited for the
Venezuelan government.
chevron_leftDesliza la imagen para ver máschevron_right
zoom_inHaz click sobre cada imagen para ampliar
At the time of the agreement, signed by Air Force Major
General Giuseppe Yoffreda, representing Corpovex, neither Saab nor Pulido had
been included on the Ofac’ list of those sanctioned by the U.S. Department of
the Treasury, nor had they been accused of money laundering in a South Florida
court, events that occurred in mid-2019. Nor had the Italian Guardia Di Finanza
frozen their assets, as it did in last year’s November.
However, Armando.info had revealed by then that Colombian businessmen were camouflaging
behind Group Grand Limited. A few years earlier, the Ecuadorian Attorney
General’s Office accused them of several crimes allegedly committed with company
Fondo Global de Construccion. In 2011, the businessmen duo had signed through
this same company a multi-million dollar contract with the government of Hugo
Chavez to build prefabricated homes in popular areas, which marked the beginning
of the golden era of their business with the self-styled Bolivarian Revolution and the process
took Alex Saab to the Miraflores palace in one of his few public
appearances.
Group Grand Limited’s is not the only financial transaction
linked to the Claps that has passed through jurisdictions known for their
financial opacity. Saab and Pulido have personally used companies from the United
Arab Emirates, while other intermediaries have received millionaire payments in banks
in Hong Kong and Switzerland.
Correspondent Bank ⸺ Allied Government
It is possible that the Caracas government’s preference for
North International Bank is because its partners are Venezuelan investors. Or
perhaps, Saab and Pulido’s experience in the Antigua and Barbuda jurisdiction -
which the Colombian tandem is very familiar with - has been more of a factor.
Alex Saab even had a passport as the island’s “economic representative,” issued
in 2014, when Prime Minister Gaston Browne had only been in office for a few
months. Browne had to give public explanations for the issuance of that
document, precisely when the investigations against Saab and Pulido were heating
up. “All I can say to the people of Antigua and Barbuda is that if Mr. Saab is
accused at any time of any wrongdoing, you can rest assured that we will revoke
his appointment,” he said to a local radio station in October
2018.
Browne is a close ally of Maduro, but is not clear if this
relationship preceded or went along with the conversion of Antigua and Barbuda
into a Chavista financial hub. The
relationship began within the framework of the Petrocaribe program, whereby Hugo
Chavez managed to seduce many of the English-speaking Caribbean countries, which
hold a significant number of votes at the OAS and other international forums.
Nonetheless, Browne and Antigua and Barbuda stood out to the point that in 2019,
they became full members of Alba (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America), the alliance of Bolivarian regimes also created by Chavez but
currently in decline.
chevron_leftDesliza la imagen para ver máschevron_right
zoom_inHaz click sobre cada imagen para ampliar
There is other evidence of the role of North International
Bank in the financial tricks of Maduro’s administration. On December 24, 2017,
the state-owned Banco del Tesoro wished a “Merry Christmas" to those it called
“our correspondent banks.” The entity of Antigua and Barbuda was among the banks
greeted, together with the Russian Gazprobank, Italbank International Inc and
the Commonwealth Bank & Trust, domiciled in Dominica, another island in the
Caribbean.
Deputy Carlos Paparoni, who has been investigating the
business behind the imports for the Claps since 2017 and last year was appointed
by the interim government of Juan Guaido as “presidential commissioner against
terrorism and organized crime,” has also identified North International Bank as
“an intermediary bank” in irregular or illegal financial operations of the
Maduro regime, where Bandes (Economic and Social Development Bank of Venezuela)
has participated. Until 2016, when Sudeban was approved and after eight years
from its creation, the trail of North International Bank in Venezuela was rather
discreet.
chevron_leftDesliza la imagen para ver máschevron_right
zoom_inHaz click sobre cada imagen para ampliar
With a Venezuelan Accent
The first North International Bank representative in Caracas,
endorsed by Sudeban, was Fidel Antonio Gomez Barrios, who is not known for his
experience in financial institutions, saved for his presence in a company
registered in Panama in 2008, called Optivalores Servicios Financieros S.A.
Fidel Gomez will not be the only Venezuelan behind North International Bank.
Actually, his partners and most of his employees are also
Venezuelan.
The current partners of the bank are Jordan Alberto Silva
Tugues and Carlos Eduardo Sandoval Arocha, both owners of NIB Asesores de
Negocios in Caracas. With that company they filed in 2013 with the Autonomous
Service of Intellectual Property (Sapi) the rights of the brand of North
International Bank in Venezuela, which were granted to them the following year.
Both the bank and the Caracas-based NIB Asesores de Negocios were founded in
2008 and have offices in Torre La Castellana, east of Caracas. Fidel Gomez,
Jordan Silva and Carlos Sandoval also worked in Caracas for the firm
Econoconsult Consultores Asociados.
Carlos Vicente Croes Hernandez was also a partner of North
International Bank between 2015 and 2016. “I have never been a director of the
bank, only a shareholder,” Croes affirmed. In his Linkedin profile, he stresses
that he has “no administrative, managerial or directive responsibility” when
referring to his time at the bank.
chevron_leftDesliza la imagen para ver máschevron_right
zoom_inHaz click sobre cada imagen para ampliar
The face of North International Bank as chairman of the board
is Jordan Silva. He was the one who appeared at the signing of a sponsorship
agreement with the Spanish first-division soccer club Atletico de Madrid. “The
agreement, effective for four years, aims to offer more and better payment
options to our team’s fans in South America and the Caribbean, reinforcing their
athletic identity and passion for soccer,” the Spanish team said in a statement,
describing North International Bank as “a renowned bank" also based in the
Dominican Republic, in addition to Antigua and Barbuda.
Yet, there is no trace of the potential operation of North
International Bank in the Dominican Republic, not even on the bank’s website or
in its promotional channels. Jordan Silva’s résumé also highlights his
experience as president of the state-owned Banco Solidario C.A. from 2006 to
2008, as well as executive director of the Federal District Government from 1995
to 1998. When contacted for this report, Silva asked for the questions in
writing, but as of the close of this edition, he had not
responded.
Sources linked to the financial world explain that it was
from 2014, when Sapi authorized the use of the North International Bank brand in
the country, that it began to attract clients with the offer of prepaid debit
cards in dollars, at a time when the rigid exchange control implemented by Chavism still limited the possibility of
having dollars if traveling abroad. In fact, in addition to the use of the
brand, Sapi approved the name “travel card” for the promotion of “prepaid and
postpaid" debit and credit cards.
In the press release issued by North International Bank weeks
after its alliance with Atletico de Madrid, it was affirmed that “it has issued
over one million physical payment instruments in the last decade, from prepaid
cards, credit cards, payroll cards to gift cards and other
options.”

North International Bank signed a sponsorship agreement with the Spanish first division soccer team, in a sign of expansion and internationalization of a bank that until 2016, had a rather diffuse trace.
In 2014, North International Bank was also seen as a sponsor
and co-publisher of brochures of Venezuelan visual artists. “For Nibank, it is
an honor to contribute to Latin American society as an international sponsor of
several social causes, within our commitment to the development of the human
being in ethical, social, sporting and cultural aspects,” reads one of those
brochures. It was an ambitious presentation for a reality that at the time was
still rather diffuse.
Today, however, the bank seems to be expanding. In addition
to the funds related to the Clap's intermediaries, the mediation or
correspondent activities of Venezuelan state banks, as well as the sponsorship
agreement with Atletico de Madrid, the institution is looking for staff for its
office in Caracas. In February of this year, the bank published in its social
media vacancies for administrators, corporate lawyers and IT means of payment
and web development specialists, among other positions. This is another sign
that North International Bank is booming since Sudeban authorized its operation
in Venezuela in 2016, despite of the extended economic downturn experienced in
the country.