"I have nothing to do with Odebrecht," he warns just in case. "I never knew that that person had a relationship with Odebrecht; otherwise, I would have asked them to finance a book of artworks as they financed another gallery".

Beyond the humorous comment, Freites recognizes the transfers. But he assures that it was the form of payment used by one of his clients, the Venezuelan lawyer Héctor Dáger, the same commission agent who was first appointed in Brazil as an intermediary of the Venezuelan Government and who is now known to have shared bank accounts with the managing director of Odebrecht in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, who in December 2016, betrayed Dáger at the hearings of the Lava Jato case.

In total, Dáger appears linked to the flow of 235 million dollars that the Swiss Prosecutor's Office attributes to the Odebrecht plot in Venezuela. The alarms went off when they found about 49 million in bank accounts in that country that he had received from Innovation Research Engineering and Development and some of the already known facades of the Brazilian construction giant to circulate their irregular payments.

But, after that initial discovery, the Swiss authorities noticed an even larger flow that reached the accounts of Dáger from the OIV Consortium, a trio of companies that, together with Odebrecht, the Italian Impregilo and the Venezuelan Vinccler, was organized in June of 2005 to erect in the State of Bolívar, in the Venezuelan Guayana, the so many times promised and still unfinished hydroelectric dam of Tocoma.

"In addition to the direct or indirect income of the Odebrecht group in accounts held by Dáger, other income that could be of interest is recorded," said prosecutor Dounia Rizzonico in a document dated November 10, 2017, which she sent from Switzerland to the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Venezuela, under code SV.17.0220-REZ. "Nearly 180 million USD were recorded between 2010 and 2015, coming from an account of OIV-Tocoma Consortium in Banesco Bank, Panama, with the reference of 'purchase material'".

The Swiss prosecutor's office managed to freeze almost 90 million dollars dammed in four of the thirteen bank accounts in the name of companies controlled by Dáger: BMS Investment, Kenvest Corp, Ocean Business Ltd, and Alquimia Holdings. But the rest of the money went on. For example, 1.3 million ended up in the M&L Art Corporation and was received by Venezuelan Alejandro Freites, owner of the Freites Gallery. Interrogated on the matter, the dealer assures that the transaction does not hide more mystery than the sale of artworks to Dáger, the details of which he prefers to reserve. He also seems surprised. He never expected that the Swiss authorities would link him to one of the greatest cases of corruption ever seen in Latin America.

But he also did not suspect, he says, of another million dollars that he received, not directly from Dáger, one of the clients of his gallery, but from the aforementioned Odebrecht facade company Innovation Research Engineering and Development, which between 2012 and 2014, remitted 14 million to Dáger from the Meinl Bank of Antigua, the bank that Odebrecht bought and tailored to suit its needs in the Caribbean island of Antigua.

Two transactions were made to Freites in an offshore company, which he shared with his wife and daughter in the British Virgin Islands, under the name of Maambe Corporation, and from which he only claims to have sold several artworks that he sent to Miami Beach, Florida. No more than that. In the interview, he prefers not to give details out of respect for his clients.

Swiss Effort

The Office of the General prosecutor’s Office of Venezuela has not referred to this particular aspect nor, in general, to the framework of irregular contributions and payments built by Odebrecht and other Brazilian civil engineering companies in Venezuela. Now that several pieces of the Odebrecht puzzle in Venezuela are beginning to appear, in the office of the pro-government prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, they ignore the case while their archrival, the rebel prosecutor, Luisa Ortega Díaz, got this week from the so-called Supreme Court in exile a sentence of 18 years in prison against the head of state, Nicolás Maduro.

A year ago, Saab ruled out opening an investigation against Maduro. "We will not work based on speculations," he resolved in August 2017, when he had just held the position at the Prosecutor’s Office. Now he does not even mention the case. His office agreed to give an answer when formally requested for information about the Odebrecht case, but it never came.

In Switzerland, where there are still many clues on the matter, the prosecution authorities continued with the investigative measures. There they keep track of a dozen Venezuelan contractors and subcontractors -mainly related to the Tocoma dam -, who received payments from Odebrecht, either through Dáger or through the parallel channels with offshore companies of the Department of Structured Operations, as Odebrecht euphemistically called its management of bribe payments.

The list includes, among others, the name of Manuel José Salazar Bianchi, the vice president of the Venezuelan Government contractor, Constructora Servisaga, who received $ 3 million from Yellow Sun Group Corp. Also includes the Venezuelans Alan Jesús Rodríguez González and Luis Ramón Serrano, each with more than six million dollars that Dáger paid them on behalf of companies M.L. Intelligence and Gambrel Group, respectively. Also 4.4 million for Energy Consultancy Ventures, owned by lawyer Freddy Manuel Díaz, general secretary of the Gigantes de Guayana basketball team and, in the past, part of the board of directors of the Professional Basketball League.

Dáger, on the other hand, in that platform of transfers, received between 2002 and 2004, deposits from the former president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Construction, Juan Francisco Clérico, and head of the Venezuelan company Inversiones y Construcciones Clérico, C.A., the traditional Vinccler family business, one of the most important in infrastructure projects in Venezuela. Vinccler accompanied Odebrecht in the unfinished Tocoma hydroelectric plant and also participated in metro lines construction projects, signed by the director of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin, political police), General Gustavo González López, when he was president of the Metro de Caracas and Los Teques.

Also worth mentioning are the $ 2.2 million that Odebrecht deposited in Credit Suisse for Rote Energie company of Joan Manuel Fereira Rosillo, a contractor in the State of Zulia (northwestern corner of Venezuela), which has worked for the state oil company Pdvsa and the mayor’s offices of Maracaibo and San Francisco. Fereira, in any case, is much more remembered for having been part of the million-dollar scam that between 2003 and 2005 was known in the region as La Vuelta, for which he was prosecuted.

Although the version of everyone involved was sought, they preferred to maintain a low profile and declined the opportunity to publish their statements. Several, though, recognized the transfers from the firms linked to Odebrecht's box 2, but at the same time, they insisted that they had contracts, invoices and everything in order to justify the payments detected in Switzerland.

The Government of Venezuela stands out among 28 countries evaluated by the University of Oxford, presented in the report "Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation" (published in 2017), which appeal to a range of cybernetic tools to try to penetrate virtual audiences. Based on the 37-folio study, these troops are directed from the Ministry of Communication and Information with money from the Venezuelan State and with political objectives. Other nations analyzed were Vietnam, North Korea, Ecuador, China, the Philippines, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Israel, Mexico, the United States of America, Ukraine, Germany or India. "Cybernetic troops are often made up of a variety of different players. In some cases, governments have their own internal teams that are employed as public officials. In others, talent is subcontracted to contractors or private volunteers," explains the study.

At the cry of "troop", Mario Silva, a legendary presenter of the Venezuelan television channel (VTV), used to decree trends on Twitter. The call to post tags favorable to the ruling party in this social media was followed by other faces of the public television. Thus, Chavismo has earned for years a privileged space on the Trending Topics list in Venezuela. But that is not the result of force of popularity or simple influence of followers only. Or, at least, that is what documents like last year’s leak from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice and the virtual programs that detect a virtual army at the service of the self-styled Bolivarian revolution showed.

The Government of Venezuela stands out among 28 countries evaluated by the University of Oxford, presented in the report "Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation" (published in 2017), which appeal to a range of cybernetic tools to try to penetrate virtual audiences. Based on the 37-folio study, these troops are directed from the Ministry of Communication and Information with money from the Venezuelan State and with political objectives. Other nations analyzed were Vietnam, North Korea, Ecuador, China, the Philippines, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Israel, Mexico, the United States of America, Ukraine, Germany or India. "Cybernetic troops are often made up of a variety of different players. In some cases, governments have their own internal teams that are employed as public officials. In others, talent is subcontracted to contractors or private volunteers," explains the study.

Two testimonies found by Armando.Info agree that the orders are issued from an office of the Ministry of Communications and Information, exclusively enabled to coordinate social media, and sometimes they hire the services of private companies engaged in the virtual world. The manual of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Justice and Peace, entitled "Training Project of the Bolivarian Revolution Trolls Army to face the Media War" - leaked to the Institute of Press and Society of Venezuela in 2017 -, gives instructions for the consolidation of a virtual battalion. Throughout 14 pages, the manual warns that the cybernetic army will be made up of several squads: press, design, IT, content "incubators," and an attack squad called "flames," which is capable of sowing "false positives."

This entire organization chart operates from three command posts divided in the creative, IT and those commissioned to attack. Thus, in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice only are over 600 people - among employees and contracted - in charge of around 15,203 accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google+ and Whatsapp. Of the five squads projected in that portfolio, the one of the "fake news" or "false positives" stands out. "In times of tension or conflict, the order was to generate rumors or false news to confuse and thus, subsequently, disprove and discredit certain characters of the opposition," says an insider who was part of the troop.    

Undoubtedly, the Government has tried to use social media as a measure of popularity. President Nicolás Maduro has assumed the challenge imposed by cyberspace as a real war. In June, the Head of State criticized the Twitter company for deactivating thousands of accounts of activists of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) "just for being Chavista," while arguing that it was "fear" because the governing party entails a political "majority" in this country. "Of course they (Twitter) have the key, they have the server and they said 'it's over', and they closed thousands of our accounts, but if they closed a thousand accounts, we will open 10,000 more with the youth and the revolutionary force of public opinion and the Venezuelan truth... The battle in social media is very important. They know that it is very important and they use social media for permanent psychological warfare," he said. The claim was made while anti-government protests were taking place between April and July, one of the most discredited episodes for Chavismo due to the death of over 120 people and hundreds of arrests.

Thanks to the Botometer application, Armando.info analyzed several Twitter accounts of politicians related to the ruling party. The one of Diosdado Cabello -one of the hierarchs of Chavism- portrays him with false followers. Of a sample of a thousand of its two million followers, 15% are part of inactive users, robots or spammers.

The figure, however, is not entirely atypical either, as 9% to 15% of active Twitter accounts behave like bots, aimed to act with different "target" groups to influence opinions and thus publish content of connected applications, according to the conclusions of the Eleventh International Conference of the AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) on Web and Social Networks, held in 2017.

But it can be about the smallest calculations against the sophisticated mechanisms to create false profiles in social media. Luis Carlos Díaz, a journalist focused on the study of social networks, indicates that in the detection of a false Twitter account, the outdated metrics are no longer valid. "The question of whether or not it has an identity has already been overcome. When one follows the false accounts of the Government they have a face, an avatar, a name. How are they detected? The idea is to see the trends that the Government originates in Twitter; for example, verify some key details: a same tweet, replicated again and again, can offer us indications of inorganic accounts."

Many of Chavismo's accounts have a profile characterized by spreading rumors and conspiracy theories, in the Marxism-Leninism propaganda style. It is not an exclusive issue of Venezuela. In the Philippines, many of the so-called "keyboard trolls" were hired to spread propaganda for presidential candidate and current head of state Rodrigo Roa Duterte during the election. Based on the Oxford study, this strategy has been continued with the aim of spreading and amplifying messages to support his policies now that he is in power.

Twitter has a specific role in Venezuela because it has become an information channel against the censorship of traditional media. Díaz explains, however, that in that virtual ecosystem there is a voracious contest between political players. “Undoubtedly Maduro has fake accounts and an army of bots to replicate content and echo in favor of official propaganda. That is a reality."

In the history of the virtual battles of Chavismo, Díaz adds an unforgettable anecdote, the use of an application to attract followers during the presidential campaign of Nicolás Maduro, in 2013. "Many people joined the official website of the then candidate of the governing party. After registering their Twitter accounts, they automatically retweeted content favorable to Maduro. The trap was evident after the company suspended thousands of users for that reason, as it has done on other occasions. In addition, there are many complaints from laboratories operating in the state Aragua, especially during the government of Tareck El Aissami, and with the support of state officials and public institutions for the purpose of conducting official campaigns through social media.”

The political turmoil of the Bolivarian Republic is not alien to the Web. With bots and robots, Chavismo creates its virtual reality.

None of his projects has decreased in the self-styled Bolivarian revolution. There is a recent complaint of plagiarism of the concept against the cafeteria, located in eastern Caracas, filed by the famous food chain Tostao' Café & Pan, of the BBI International group and originally from Colombia. But Fernandez is unconcerned. He knows that his version, already operative and opened in September by the Ministry of Tourism of Venezuela —led by Marleny Contreras, wife of Diosdado Cabello, the powerful number two of chavismo, current deputy of the pro-government Constituent Assembly—, is just beginning its growth in a commercial alliance with the Venezuelan state institution of tourism (Venetur). "Everyone has won more than ever with this revolutionary process. Evidently under the laws," Fernandez revealed in March in an interview to the main channel of the State, Venezolana de Televisión, during the celebration of the Power Expo 2017, a fair designed to publicize the relationships of the government of Nicolás Maduro with the private sector. 

Fernandez's is not an idyllic run of luck. Its thriving companies have had the backing of the Chavez government since 2004. It was that year when he began to undergo a transformation from a modest merchant to a corporate leader in the South American country. He had registered, then, with his current wife, Darin Wahbeh Saroukhan, the Atahualpa Group.

The muscle of its business activities has been the military. In Fuerte Tiuna, the main military installation in the country, in the southwest of Caracas, he developed the Tiuna Industrial Complex I. There, in the heart of the barracks that serves as headquarters for the Ministry of Defense, operates his drinking water bottling plant and its textile factory; both make up the Atahualpa Group in an unusual location.

Among his other companies in Venezuela, there is Representaciones y Servicios ADWD, Distribuidora Todo Sur, Texticentro II, Servicios Industriales El Gran País, Productos Serigráficos Atahualpa. While his favorite clients include Banco de la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana, Petróleos de Venezuela, the National Electoral Council (CNE), Sidor (Siderúrgica del Orinoco "Alfredo Maneiro"), the National Telephone Company of Venezuela (Cantv), Movilnet, Government of the Capital District, Corporación Venezolana de la Juventud Productora (Venezuelan Corporation of Producing Youth), Ministry of Communes, Venezuelan Institute of Social Security (IVSS), among other state-dependent agencies.  

His brand stood out in the 2013 presidential campaign. That year, his backpacks —designed by the Atahualpa Group with the omnipresent eyes of Hugo Chávez as logo or motif— were distributed among thousands of citizens to promote the successor of the leader of the revolution, Nicolás Maduro. Two years later, the businessman was portrayed along with senior officials of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces to promote bottles of mineral water that, in alliance with Compañía Anónima de Industrias Militares (Cavim), would supply the Venezuelan market. It had been the cut-off point for Fernández not to continue being the figure behind his products, but rather a brand of the chavista process.

Outside the corporate closet, Fernández insists on showing a fresh face. He shows a group of uniformed men who won in October, and for the ninth time, a softball tournament held in the Dominican Republic. It is the "Bandidos de un Solo Brazo" team from Venezuela, sponsored by its company Complejo Industrial Tiuna I, which has defeated its adversaries. The sport is one of the countless hobbies he shares with former president Chávez. The rest are his leftist doctrines, his passion for the military and a pretense to highlight the social aspect. That is his speech in front of the television cameras and the written press. His comments focus on applauding the work of Venezuelan socialism in almost all his interviews.

Favorite Ally

Like Tosta'o Coffee Market, Kenco design agency has also shown an emerging advertising potential. Its director and co-founder, Karen Cortés, niece of the Minister for Communication and Information, Ernesto Villegas Poljak, opened in September a new branch in La Castellana, in eastern Caracas, where they provide services ranging from flat to canvas printing.

Fernández has been engaged in founding companies with his wife. The business purposes vary: textile production, food service, beverage manufacturing, design, and creative advice. Some companies and properties are established in Venezuela, others in foreign lands like the Dominican Republic, Peru, United States of America and Spain. The good sense of this businessman has been productive even in times of revolution. He was part of a top-class that emerged in the Chávez government which, for more than ten years, made him a beneficiary of the desired preferential dollars granted by Cencoex (National Foreign Trade Center), former Cadivi (Foreign Exchange Administration Commission), an institution currently investigated by the Prosecutor's Office for having disbursed millions of dollars to cash shell companies or that simply incurred in exchange crimes between 2011 and 2014.

The destiny of the dollars granted by the governing body of foreign currency to Fernandez - over 7.5 million in the decade from 2004 to 2014 - has also been a matter to be investigated in the ranks of the Venezuelan opposition. In 2015, Julio Montoya, deputy of the National Assembly, blamed the businessman and his partner Luis Eduardo Álvarez, a relative of former vice president and current foreign minister Jorge Arreaza –son-in-law of Commander Chávez-, for being the financial bridge in Venezuela of the Podemos political party in Spain. "If you check their records, you will find the links with Podemos," he said in an interview with Madrid's ABC newspaper. "Atahualpa's shell companies maintain active contacts in Spain, where he owns companies in association with José María Rubio Hermoso de Mendoza, the administrator of Fórmula Cuatro Televisión and Medios SL, and also a member of Royal Spanish Automobile Federation and Formula 4 Ibérica SL."

Fernández lives in Madrid with Wahbeh Saroukhan and his two sons. In Spain, he and his wife run several businesses. Before his frantic economic expansion, he was in the shadows. His father, Senen Fernández Delgado, a Spaniard and founder of the Communist Party of Bolivia, had migrated to Venezuela in October 1983 with his Peruvian wife Rosa Alburu and their five children. The family was avoiding the economic crisis in Peru, having phlegmatic beginnings in Caracas.

Atahualpa, raised in a middle-class home, was engaged in the textile industry. He was a fabric cutter, initially, in the center of the capital of Venezuela. "I became a mechanic of sewing machines at 16 years old. I got to master the trade by being consistent. I suffered hardships, but I had the good fortune to meet good people along the way who offered me a hand," he said in a review published in August in his blog "Atahualpa Fernández Arbulu."

The background of this story dates back to 13 years and leads to the cooperation agreement signed at that time by Chávez and Néstor Kirchner, which later led to a bilateral trust. Thanks to this alliance, the three modest companies of Levy (Laboratorios Esme, Corporación Gulfos and Bleu Tel) took out a burdensome business that today is ruinous for Venezuelans. The nut that would screw Laboratorios Esme, for example, as one of the main suppliers of cleaning supplies to the state-owned Suministros Venezolanos Industriales (Suvinca) was the signing of a "letter of intent" between both parties.

It happened on April 20, 2010, and it was a gesture followed with official zeal, since days before and after the agreement a delegation of the then President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, consisting of the Argentine ambassador in Caracas, Carlos Alberto Cheppi and José María Olazagasti (right-hand man of Julio De Vido, the controversial Minister of Planning of the Kirchners), had shared a few hours of flight with Levy from Caracas to Buenos Aires. He was not the only one. About 20 trips shared between the entrepreneur and several officials of the Casa Rosada, including De Vido, and other evidence exposed in the court file show that in this case, there are no coincidences.

Having paved the way for high-ranking K leaders, Levy learned to navigate without getting shipwrecked in the business between Buenos Aires and Caracas. Without economic capacity to support the agreements reached, their companies enjoyed the privilege of a 60% advanced payments as soon as they signed contracts with Suvinca and the Venezuelan National Telephone Company (Cantv), but they also incurred in overbilling of merchandise, freight and even insurance of shipments, defaults in shipments, and diversion of funds to private banks, later transferred to still unknown accounts, and even forging of the signature of one of the partners of Levy’s companies, his brother Alejandro. It is a mix that explains why the Argentine justice considers him as a suspect of money laundering, evasion and aggravated smuggling in this trading with Venezuela and the seizure of around 300 million pesos in their bank accounts.

These businesses with Levy not only involve several state companies, but also reach the management of a few Venezuelan officials, like Manuel Fernández Meléndez (president of Cantv and former Minister of Science and Technology), Richard Canán and Edmeé Betancourt (former Trade Ministers) and Eddie Betancourt (former president of Suvinca – Venezuelan Industrial Supplies), among others.

License to Deceive

For the Prosecutor’s Office of Argentina it is "striking" that the first of the three contracts entered into between Suvinca and Laboratorios Esme —including their "addenda", from February 22, 2011 to March 21, 2012— provided the supply of 6,325,440 units of products worth 22.3 million dollars. This amount "significantly" increased to 65.5 million dollars and finally to 119.7 million dollars, but without "explicitly indicating the increase" of the merchandise to be bought by the Venezuelan state company.

Almost the same thing happened with the other Levy companies. Between 2012 and 2013, Corporación Gulfos and Bleu Tel signed contracts with CANTV for over 126 million dollars for the supply of set-top-boxes, external television antennas and replacement parts. The Venezuelan telephone company incurred, at the very least, in an act of faith. None of the companies of the Levy family had a standing and had been recently organized at the time of the agreements. Until December 2014, the Corporación Gulfos belonged to Frolem Corporation LC, located in Nevada, USA, and was controlled by Plascot Limited, in Seychelles (both created by the already famous Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, the documents of which leaked to the press and gave rise to the global research published in 2016, known as Panama Papers).

But Frolem Corporation LC is a secret. "Based on the registration form of general and/or commercial information of the Bureau of Legal Entities (Argentina), it has registered domicile in calle Quinquela Martín, número 19, manzana 11 "c" of Ciudad Evita, Partido de la Matanza, provincia de Buenos Aires (...) The acknowledgement record of March 17, 2014, on public deed 19, from clerk Alicia Folco, states that the house in that address appeared to be unoccupied, and that the light meter did not indicate the use of electric current," explains another judicial file.

In the end, the money drain and the breaches of contracts were a constant. With the sale of personal care products, so scarce in the Venezuelan market for years, which Levy had to make through Laboratorios Esme, the mess is such that even in 2016, the company had not complied with the agreed supplies, previously paid by Suvinca. "From January 2011 to 7/19/2016, the CIF value (freight and insurance included) of Laboratorios Esme exports to company Suvinca was
US $ 49,281,502.65, while the currency exchange settlements in the same period reached a total of US $ 88,269,655. Hence, the exports made represent only 55.83% of total foreign currency settled,” says the file prepared by prosecutor María Luz Rivas Diez.

The document reveals almost the same irregularity in the contracts for the supply of set-top-boxes and television antennas. Based on an account of Corporación Gulfos in BBVA Banco Francés, the company had a net worth of 5.7 million dollars, but had not "registered sales" in 2012 and 2013. However, between last year’s August and December, there had been an unusual increase in fixed-term deposits in the amount of 52 million dollars. "We have not been able to obtain actual proof of the existence of the merchandise described in the documents provided - acquired from company Chai Wang Digital Limited of Hong Kong -, its actual shipment, its actual delivery in Venezuela to the National Telephone Company of Venezuela -owned by PDVSA-, or the cause or justification of the triangulation," indicates the "reporting person" of this banking group to the prosecutor's office.

Overbilling of goods, freight and even insurance was a common practice, according to the judicial investigation. "The goods exported by Laboratorios Esme to Suvinca were declared at a price that significantly exceeded the actual price, i.e. the price of the goods sent to Venezuela was overvalued." In comparison with the export prices of multinational companies like Johnson & Johnson or Kimberly Clark from Argentina, the products shipped by Levy to the Venezuelan government reflect a premium that ranged between 145% and 339% in items like diapers and pads. There is even a huge price differential between what Levy exported to countries like Chile, Cuba or Uruguay, and what it sold to Venezuela. "As an example, in invoice 111 of 6/11/2012 to Suvinca de Venezuela, the 4-liter Top Win Softener for clothes showed a unit price of US $ 6,700. However, in invoice 118 of 6/26/2012, the same product was brought to Chile at a unit price of US $ 2,640 —a price difference of around 154%."

That practice of inflating invoices was not limited to products. It was use to assess freight and insurance cost. "It is observed that the freight values ??charged by Laboratorios Esme to Suvinca are disproportionate in relation to the cost that Esme paid for such concepts to Juwald," the Argentine prosecutor explains after comparing invoices of several shipments.

"This leads to notice that in addition to an interrupted millionaire contract, much of the money paid in advanced and/or transferred by Suvinca to Laboratorios ESME was not intended to pay for goods, but to solve logistics costs outrageously increased by ESME," as stated in the file.

With the state-owned company Cantv, that overpricing scheme in the value of shipments is more outrageous. For the Argentine prosecutor's office it is "inexplicable and unreasonable" from a commercial perspective that the cost of air freight was equal to or higher than the price of the merchandise. Bleu Tel's sales invoices show that the antennas had a cost of $ 38 per unit, while the air freight cost ranged from $ 38 to $ 48 per unit. "The ocean freight cost was US$ 13.12 per unit. Bear in mind that these are not essential or perishable products that require immediate arrival," as indicated in the file.

Laboratorios Esme 2010-2011 Catalog by ArmandoInfo on Scribd

The documents obtained by the Argentine judicial authorities reveal, in addition, that this scheme of inflating the cost of the freights counted on the participation of the Venezuelan telephone company. In an exchange of emails between CANTV officials with the Levy brothers and partners details the consent. "This is to request you to send me a formal quotation for the freight and insurance of the set-top-boxes and the missing antennas. Please submit two quotations, one for air and one for sea transportation, in order to adjust the cost of freight to the budget in the contract. It can be a mixed solution, i.e. to send, for example, 75,000 STBs by air and 75,000 by sea, and all the antennas by sea, which is what costs more and triggered the prices. I must submit that quotation to Engineer (Manuel) Fernández as soon as possible due to the increase," wrote an employee, Rafael Belisario, to Alejandro Levy, on December 4, 2012.

Rivers of Money to Tax Heavens

For the Argentine authorities, the suspicious handling of Levy was not limited to those breaches or unjustified surcharge in the sale prices to Venezuelan state companies. The money leaks occurred from several sides. When these negotiations were held, there was a strict currency exchange control in Argentina and Venezuela. Hence, Corporación Gulfos and Bleu Tel received dollars at preferential prices to pay goods to companies Sichuan in China and Chai Wan Digital Limited in Hong Kong, and then resell it to Cantv.

This is the result of a well-conceived strategy, according to court reports. In this way, the money did not enter Argentina, but to controlled bank accounts or with the cooperation of international companies Chai Wan Digital LTD and Sichuan Changhong. Due to Levy's relationship with other entrepreneurs linked to these companies it is also suspected that these dollars have circulated or been transferred to the Frolem Corporation coffers.

"Chai Wan Digital Limited was registered under number 1909266, on May 20, 2013, as a Private Company Limited by Shares. In other words, this company was registered 25 days after the signing of the contract between Corporación Gulfos and Cantv de Venezuela, i.e. on April 25, 2013. However, the contractual prices between Cantv and Corporación Gulfos were set when the provider chose by the Corporación Gulfos did not even exist," says the prosecutor of the case against Levy.

Along with the operations via Hong Kong, considered one of the "most important banking and financial secrecy in the world," the prosecutor also detected strange deviations of money in Levy's contract with Suvinca, which also lead to tax havens. The Prosecutor's Office verified that Laboratorios Esme made payments in dollars to Importadora Asiria, a Venezuelan company engaged in the trading of goods, with an office in the center of Caracas and two workers only, according to the National Register of Contractors.

It involved three transfers made between December 14, 2011 and January 18, 2012 for a total of US$ 224,371 to an account in Venecredit Bank & Trust of the Cayman Islands. "All these aspects lead us to suspect that it was an operation organized with the purpose of transferring foreign currencies claiming supposed services of transfer of containers to justify them," concludes the prosecutor.

In the incorporation papers of the company in Caracas there is no record that the "purpose" of the company is to provide port or logistics services. One of its shareholders, Daniel Cabrices, answered by telephone, "I do not know what you're talking about. I do not know either company," when asked about the payments in dollars that the company of Levy transferred to him. Cabrices undertook to verify the information and answer again, but that never happened.

In the 120-page brief prepared by the Argentine public prosecutor's office there is no evidence that any Venezuelan authority has noticed how ruinous businesses with Levy were. On the contrary, there are documents with decisions incomprehensible for the prosecutor, like the letter sent on March 7, 2014 to Levy by the then president in charge of Suvinca, General of Division Vinicio Eusebio Micotti Lanz. In that letter, the Venezuelan official raised the need to "modify the schedule of dispatch of goods," "establish a round table" to verify the "orders and shipments agreed by the parties" and even a "temporary suspension" of shipments "until June, approximately."

These arguments lead the prosecutor to decide that "under the commercial attire of a supply agreement millions in dollars were transferred, most of which were not aimed to perform that agreement." By the time of the letter, two other ministers were managing the trade portfolio, Alejandro Fleming and Dante Rivas. Nobody stopped the bleeding. On the contrary, the Venezuelan authorities included Levy in new businesses, to the point of appointing him as a supplier of medicines in another million-dollar agreement.

The medicines were to be in the Venezuelan market in 2015, but not even the pharmacy shelves
- Venezuela has been suffering from a general shortage of medicines for months -, nor the entrepreneurs linked to the Venezuelan pharmaceutical sector are aware of the results of that agreement. "That company (Laboratorios Esme) was brought into the sector by Cheppi (the former Argentine ambassador in Caracas)," says a Venezuelan entrepreneur who preferred anonymity and does not rule out the inclusion of Laboratorios Esme as a supplier of medicines through a "triangulation" from Cuba.

In Argentina, they say that neither Laboratorios Esme nor Farmamed are part of the pharmaceutical industry of the southern country. "None of these companies act in the area of ??drug production and in any case, it is about SMEs, i.e. of small size and scale," said a southern entrepreneur.

Little remains of the oil bonanza of the times of Chávez and the dreams of a great South American union with ideological allies. In this transit, millions of dollars went to the bank accounts of Argentine entrepreneurs like Levy, dollars that are craved today during the "lean times" and scarcity of Chávez's heir. In February 2013, Levy even declared to Telam, the Argentine news agency, that his company Laboratorios Esme is "in the final stage" of an agreement for the "installation of a plant in Venezuela for the production of shampoo, creams, detergents and other grooming items that will be marketed in the country and in other ALBA member nations," like Cuba and Bolivia. None of that materialized. Irregularities were also detected in the same origin of the cooperation agreements reached between the deceased Chávez and Néstor Kirchner, like those indicated by former Argentine ambassador in Caracas, Eduardo Sadous, which cost him his position. It was an alliance that was born condemned to corruption scandals.

Eight-year-old Abismael Espinoza Rodríguez arrived at the Guaiparo hospital with this clinical condition, one night in late September. The parents of the child had gone first to a medical module of Barrio Adentro —the health program sponsored by former President Hugo Chávez with Cuba’s cooperation— in the town of San Félix. "The doctor said it was tonsillitis, so we went back home and just follow the treatment. But as days passed, he got worse. We decided to take him to a hospital and that's when the worst happened," says Gregoria Rodríguez, the boy's mother.

On October 11, the Minister of Health, Luisana Melo, spoke for the first time about the outbreak of the disease: "It is a regional issue, in Bolívar state only. Of all the suspected cases, four cases of diphtheria were found and two confirmed deaths. "But 12 days before these statements, there was another government diagnosis. Francisco Rangel Gómez, the governor of Bolívar, launched a much higher number in late September: "We have had 13 cases of diphtheria."

According to the death certificate of Abismael Espinoza, the child died as a result of diphtheric cardiomyopathy. Like his, the death certificates of three other children from Bolívar - Sara Bastardo, Jhoangely Alexandra Ochoa, and Dariervys Brazón -, issued between September 24 and October 10, and obtained by Armando.info, indicated diphtheria as the cause the deaths. For physicians in the health centers of Bolívar, witnesses of the resurgence of diphtheria, an epidemic is hidden. "The confirmation of cases is usually delayed, because almost all of the evidence is sent to Caracas. However, we already have several patients, dozens, and they do not know each other. There are more than 20 deaths from this disease. Even the pediatric ward of the hospital (Raúl Leoni) has been enabled to attend only potential patients of diphtheria," says a doctor at this hospital.

Diphtheria is a preventable disease. The expedited way to avoid an outbreak in the population is vaccination. In Venezuela, immunization depends on health programs run by the State. According to recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), countries should immunize 90 percent of the population, in this case with the vaccine known as DPT3, to prevent the re-emergence of this disease. However, this guideline has not been complied with in Bolívar state in the last decade.

The parents of Abismael Espinoza do not remember if the child got the three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria. In 2008, the year in which Espinoza was born, coverage of the DPT3 vaccine in Bolívar state reached 16.5 percent, according to records of the Yearbook of the Expanded Program on Immunizations (1962-2009) of the Ministry of Health. The figures from entities have not been disclosed periodically in the last six years, although the Venezuelan Society of Public Health has got the feel of the epidemiological situation based on official and other leaked statistics. "Bolívar is one of the six most vulnerable states in Venezuela, because until mid-2016 the immunization coverage against this disease was at an annual rate of 42 percent. Other states in similar conditions are Barinas, Carabobo, Delta Amacuro, Monagas and Zulia. This reveals that it is not a regional problem, as the minister points out. It is already an epidemic, a single case is enough to be considered an epidemic, and it can expand to other places," says José Félix Oletta, a member of this organization and former Minister of Health.

Until a few days ago, there were no evident signs of health prevention. At the airport of Puerto Ordaz, in Bolívar, and at the main land terminals, the health conditions of the passengers were not examined. In contrast, the outbreak is considered a danger abroad, although the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has not yet issued an alert. In Guyana, which borders Venezuela precisely on the border of Bolívar state, they have implemented an intense vaccination campaign to prevent the spread of the disease, while the Ministry of Public Health of the Dominican Republic has recommended the medical staff of the International Airport of Las Americas to be vigilant with travelers from Venezuela in the face of the resurgence of diphtheria.

The Distant Antidote

The parents of the four children whose death certificates indicate that they died of diphtheria admitted that they did not completed the required doses of the vaccines. "I always wanted to vaccinate my baby, but when I went to the outpatient clinic or the hospital, they told me that the vaccine had run out. At some point, I threw in the towel and did not keep going," says Melville.

Diphtheria vaccines depend on an agreement signed between Cuba and Venezuela, through the Socialist Company for the Production of Biological Medicines, Espromed Bio C.A., created on June 12, 2014 by a decree of President Nicolás Maduro.

However, Espromed Bio was not an invention of the Government. The vaccine plant, in Universidad central de Venezuela, already existed since 2000 and depended on the Rafael Rangel National Hygiene Institute. The Government only decided to transfer the administration directly to the Ministry of Health to reinforce its operation. The company was expected to meet the country's demand, since it is made up of three independent laboratories for the industrial fermentation process with the capacity to produce 160 million doses of diphtheria toxoid, anti-Pertussis vaccine and tetanus toxoid per year, and with a plant of formulation, filling and final processing, with an installed capacity of 120 million doses per year.

The emerging promise has not escaped from the Venezuelan decline though. Last year, Espromed Bio only produced the packaging and labeling of 21,718,906 doses of biological products and essential medicines to prevent diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, toxins, among other agents. Only 5,104,842 out of this amount —almost all the doses acquired from the agreement between Cuba and Venezuela—were distributed in the country. According to the 2015 Annual Report of the Ministry of Health, the company was victim of delays in the allocation of foreign currency to import spare parts and supplies for production, among other administrative obstacles.

The reappearance of diphtheria has coincided with the worst health crisis faced in Venezuela. The country, dependent on oil and subject to strict foreign exchange control, has fallen into a financial meltdown that causes a drop in imports. This situation has affected hospitals, pharmacies and laboratories that, in most cases, are supplied with inputs acquired abroad. It is estimated that there is almost a deficit of 85 percent of drugs -according to the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation- and a growing deterioration of medical centers. But the Government of Maduro has coined the term of "economic war" to hold it responsible for all ills.

The Gospel of Omission

In the Christian church of the Buen Retiro neighborhood of San Felix, in the heart of Bolívar state, they have said a prayer for the soul of Saraí Bastardo. The inhabitants of this walled village still cannot find explanations for the sudden death of the girl. Solmaira Melville, the mother of Saraí, resents not having noticed in time the signs of faintness of the daughter: "Dyspnea, sore throat, stifling sensation in the chest. Since she was asthmatic, we thought that was what she had, and that she would improve with medication. But it was not that, it was diphtheria."

The outbreak of diphtheria has unleashed fear in Bolívar. Melville denounces that one of his three children has been isolated at school. "A teacher began to say that the child could not be with the other children; that he had to be subject to medical exams before rejoining. After the death of my baby, we have all been vaccinated. Already, after several complaints, the principal is aware of this and allowed the child to attend school," she says.

In the neighborhood of the Espinoza Rodriguez family, the mourners of Abismael, is already aware of the diphtheria due to the death of the child. "Ask about the mother of the child who died of diphtheria! Anyone can tell you where my home is," says Gregoria Rodríguez, when scheduling a journalistic interview.

According to Oletta, the worst recipe applied by the Ministry of Health is "concealment" of information. "Minister Melo has made a serious mistake. The worst that can be done in an epidemic is to say nothing or that everything is under control when it is not. In the end, that delegitimizes her. It also causes discrimination within the population due to uncertainty. Damage is being caused in the country due the bad policies and for not having the courage to rectify and admit that they have been wrong," he explains.

Since the health authority gave a statement on October 11, no more official figures on the outbreak have been released. Armando.info contacted the Ministry of Health to obtain updated statistics on diphtheria, but they responded that it was not possible to know them because Melo was in the presentation of Venezuela’s Human Rights report before the United Nations Organization in Geneva (Switzerland), and other spokespersons had to be authorized to give a statement.

The silence of the Ministry of Health is questioned. This week, Melo received strong criticism on Twitter, to the point of becoming a trend in the social network, by omitting the health crisis in Venezuela during her speech to the United Nations in Geneva, in the second Universal Periodic Review. She said that the government has distributed over 6.5 million vaccines to protect Venezuelans from 16 different types of diseases, but she failed to talk about diphtheria. There is also no information on the outbreak in the south of the country in the portal of health or in its social networks. The State apparatus continues admitting only two deaths caused by this disease, although at least twice as many deaths could be confirmed for this report. The silence is still official.

*This work had the support of the reporting work of Marcos David Valverde in Bolívar state.