He \r\ndoes not know. He says he does not understand it. He cannot explain how his name \r\ncame to appear on the Odebrecht lists. The Venezuelan engineer Lucas Valera was \r\nsurprised to see himself involved in a list of clandestine transfers, which the \r\nBrazilian construction giant distributed from 2006 to 2008. It is about 377 \r\nthousand US dollars, which he affirms he does not remember. \"Why should I know?\" \r\nHe asks. \"I do not know\u2026\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
His \r\ntransfer appears as fifth in a list of 18 transfers that Odebrecht acknowledged \r\nand submitted to the Peruvian justice as part of a process of \"effective \r\ncollaboration.\" Prosecutor Hamilton Castro presented that document on February \r\n9. It has become one of the most important documents in the process that calls \r\nfor the appearance of former President Alejandro Toledo, the copy of which -now \r\nleaked for this report- points Valera as the only individual in a tangle of \r\ncompanies and transfers in Peru related to the Odebrecht case.<\/p>\n\n\n
The \r\npayments came from four offshore companies. Klienfeld Services Limited stands \r\nout. It is the already infamous firm that served Odebrecht to inject fresh money \r\ninto the last re-election campaign of former President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, according to \r\nthe testimony that Brazilian publicist Joao Santana and his wife M\u00f3nica Moura \r\ngave a year ago in exchange for procedural benefits in the snowball rolling from \r\nBrazil known as Lava Jato<\/I>.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Valera\u2019s \r\ntransfer, unlike the other 17, was made to a personal account in his name and, \r\njust in case, reiterated with the home area in Caracas. He, however, insists \r\nthat he has nothing to do with this; that he does not know Josef Maiman or any \r\nof the other characters that the Peruvian Prosecutor has accused as frontmen of \r\nformer President Toledo; that there must be an error. \"You talk about Peru and \r\nif the President were in front of me I would not even know who he \r\nis.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nname Odebrecht is not alien to Valera. After all, he spent more than five years \r\nof his life working with them in the construction of the second bridge over the \r\nOrinoco River, as general project coordinator for Corporaci\u00f3n Venezolana de \r\nGuayana. In 2003, he was even seen on the national radio and television station \r\nat the front of the work in a live transmission, which connected him from the \r\nsouth of Venezuela, in the state of Bol\u00edvar, with the Miraflores Palace. \"Good \r\nafternoon President (...) This is a railway bridge that will allow us to link \r\nBol\u00edvar, Anzo\u00e1tegui and Monagas states through 166 kilometers of \r\nroads.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t