As if they were pieces of a broken mirror scattered in many islands around the world, several offshore companies form an oil-trading business network that reveals the trajectory of Alessandro Bazzoni and Francisco D'Agostino. Both of them, together with the Venezuelan telecommunications magnate Oswaldo Cisneros, landed in 2016 in the Orinoco Belt to fill the vacancy of the original partner, Harvest Natural Resources.
A solitary block of concrete, barely protected from flood by sump pumps, lies in the waters of the lower Caroní River. This is the case of the planned Manuel Piar hydroelectric plant in Tocoma, southern Venezuela, after paying US$ 10 billion —three times the budget and partly with funds from multilateral agencies— to several contractors, including the controversial Brazilian construction company. Of that amount, at least US$ 1 billion corresponded to irregularly paid foreign currencies through an administrative scheme (80-20, they called it) that an internal audit found, which was used to finance commissions to project management.
After making friends with chavista and opposition politicians, the brothers Leopoldo and Andrés Castillo Bozo were charged in 2009 by the Venezuelan Prosecutor for the crime of identity theft to buy public debt bonds. The Panama Papers revealed that at the time, the owners of Grupo Banvalor had three companies in the Virgin Islands, in addition to 22 more companies distributed in the United States of America, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. Never had a flight been so well secured.
