![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-1.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Since January of the current year, several ships with food for CLAPs have arrived at Venezuelan ports for public companies like Cobiserta, Corpovex or Cuspal.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-2.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div>Maduro\u2019s CLAP plan has ended up benefiting entrepreneurs in Mexico. The business boom is such that even some Aztec companies package exclusive presentations for CLAP, like powdered milk.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-3.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div>Maduro\u2019s CLAP plan has ended up benefiting entrepreneurs in Mexico. The business boom is such that even some Aztec companies package exclusive presentations for CLAP, like powdered milk.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nEach \r\ncontainer brought around 1,000 to 1,300 boxes for CLAPs, containing eleven \r\nproducts: powdered milk, lentils, corn flour, rice, beans, oil, sugar, pasta \r\n(short and long), mayonnaise, tomato sauce, and canned tuna. The phrase \"Made in \r\nMexico\" is repeated in the package of these products. One of the powdered milk \r\nbrands even specifies that it is exclusively packed for the \"Local Supply and \r\nProduction Committee,\" proof that Maduro\u2019s plan is good business for Mexican \r\ncompanies.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
With the \r\nexception of the sale of items like white corn, vegetable oil and lentils, \r\nMexican exports to Venezuela were virtually zero. However, Maduro\u2019s regime \r\nsuddenly became one of the main buyers of essential goods and found in Mexico \r\nthe lifeline to bring subsidized food to a population that is dissatisfied by \r\nthe general shortage and suffocated by inflation on the way to four digits at \r\n2017 close. <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
Confirmed Trend<\/h2>\n\n\n
The trend, \r\nwhich began in the second half of 2016 in products like mayonnaise, powdered \r\nmilk and sugar, was completed in the first four months of this year, according \r\nto official data from Mexico. The regime has even come to dethrone the United \r\nStates of America - the neighbor and traditional trade partner of Mexicans - in \r\nthe purchase of food to become the number one in the world in seven of the \r\neleven products that fill the CLAPs (rice, white corn, lentils, black beans, \r\ncanned tuna, tomato sauce, and pasta) and second customer in three other items \r\n(vegetable oil, powdered milk, and sugar). <\/p>\n\n\n
From January to April 2017 alone, Mexico exported to Venezuela 209,124 tons of food for the government of Maduro<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
From \r\nJanuary to April 2017 alone, Mexico exported to Venezuela 209,124 tons of food \r\nfor the government of Maduro - so hostile and apparently distanced from the \r\ngovernment of Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto - to consolidate its subsidized food program. \r\nDuring this period, Venezuelan purchases of vegetable oil, rice, canned tuna, \r\nsugar, black beans, lentils, white corn, mayonnaise, pasta, and tomato sauce, \r\nall included in the CLAPs, totaled 127 million dollars. As if that were not \r\nenough, last May alone, 205 thousand tons were shipped, almost the total of the \r\nfirst four months, for a value close to 50 million \r\ndollars.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
That \r\nexchange seems like a fraction of a larger business. Although the Venezuelan \r\nauthorities do not disclose the investment in dollars for CLAPs, the documents \r\nobtained for this report allows us to establish that nearly 500 million dollars \r\nfrom Venezuela ended up in Mexico. It is not a minor figure, if considering that \r\nit could settle at least half of the debt that the companies clustered in the \r\nVenezuelan Chamber of Food Industry (Cavidea) have with their suppliers abroad \r\ndue to imports that were completed, but that the Government never paid and that \r\nhas caused a paralysis in the national production.<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-4.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Invoice issued by Group Grand Limited to Cobiserta<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-5.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Invoice issued by Group Grand Limited to Cobiserta<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-6.png\")
<\/div><\/div>On October 10, 2016, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro approved for T\u00e1chira State Governor Jos\u00e9 Vielma Mora an order for the purchase of 10 million food combos. The President of the Republic authorized 340 million dollars from Fonden to import the merchandise.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-7.png\")
<\/div><\/div>On October 10, 2016, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro approved for T\u00e1chira State Governor Jos\u00e9 Vielma Mora an order for the purchase of 10 million food combos. The President of the Republic authorized 340 million dollars from Fonden to import the merchandise.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-8.png\")
<\/div><\/div>On October 10, 2016, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro approved for T\u00e1chira State Governor Jos\u00e9 Vielma Mora an order for the purchase of 10 million food combos. The President of the Republic authorized 340 million dollars from Fonden to import the merchandise.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nThe cargo \r\nwas received in Venezuela by public companies like the Trader of Goods and \r\nServices of the State of T\u00e1chira (Cobiserta), attached to the Government of that \r\nstate, in western Venezuela. With the financial support of the central \r\ngovernment with 340 million dollars, the governor of the T\u00e1chira state, Jos\u00e9 \r\nGregorio Vielma Mora, imported 10 million CLAP boxes. Corporaci\u00f3n \u00danica de \r\nServicios Productivos y Alimentarios (Cuspal), which reports to the Ministry of \r\nFood, and the state-owned Corporaci\u00f3n Venezolana de Comercio Exterior (Corpovex) \r\n\u2013 a sort of a large public importer - are other consignees of the Mexican \r\ncargo.
The purchases have been mediated by at least two entrepreneurs \r\nquestioned in several jurisdictions, but close to Maduro\u2019s government, \r\nVenezuelan Samark L\u00f3pez and Colombian Alex Saab, the latter linked to the former \r\nColombian senator Piedad C\u00f3rdoba and investigated in Ecuador for irregularities \r\nin other of his businesses with Venezuela.
Saab, for example, used a \r\nregistered company in Hong Kong called Group \r\nGrand Limited to buy the products in Mexico and then resell them to the \r\nGovernment of T\u00e1chira<\/A>. The data from the Ministry of Economy of \r\nMexico are once again revealing. If you cross the price reflected in the \r\ninvoices issued by Group Grand Limited with the values ??of Mexican exports to \r\nVenezuela reported by the agency, it is evident that filling the CLAP box costs \r\nin Mexico about 16 dollars, while the Saab company resold it for almost 34 \r\ndollars. <\/p>\n\n\nCorn was resold to more than six times its value<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
The only \r\nproducts that Venezuelans paid at a price similar to that reported by Mexico for \r\nits exports to Venezuela, according to the invoices of Group Grand Limited, were \r\npowdered milk, sugar and vegetable oil. In contrast, corn was resold to more \r\nthan six times its value. In other words, two 1-kilo bags of corn flour, which, \r\naccording to the Ministry of Economy were exported at $ 0.54, were placed at $ \r\n3.40 in the CLAP boxes sold by Group Grand Limited. Rice, mayonnaise and tomato \r\nsauce triples the cost.
Group Grand Limited completed the majority of the \r\nbusiness with the Government of T\u00e1chira on January 9-31, 2017, based on the \r\ndates of the invoices. It is almost the same period in which Samark L\u00f3pez also \r\nstarted massive purchases of food in Mexico through Postar \r\nIntertrade Limited, a company registered in the island of Barbados.<\/A> \r\n<\/p>\n\n\nIn just seven days in January, Lopez's company bought food from Mexican companies for almost 12 million dollars<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
In just \r\nseven days in January (9-16) Lopez's company bought food from at least nine \r\nMexican companies for 11,992 billion dollars, Grupo Soriana; Value Oriented \r\nServices (VOS), created five years ago by Kenneth Moskal, former director of the \r\nSoriana Supply Chain; The modern; Golden Foods, Cereales y Pastas SA de CV; \r\nCOPROP, SA de CV; Aktion Trade Services; Comercializadora DTLP and Grupo Pando, \r\naccording to different invoices.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
At that \r\ntime, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the \r\nTreasury had not publicly identified Samark L\u00f3pez as \"front man\" of Vice \r\nPresident of the Republic Tareck El Aissami, accused by Americans for \r\nparticipating in drug trafficking. That sanction from Washington occurred in \r\nearly February, just when the port of Puerto Cabello - the main one in the \r\ncountry, some 300 kilometers from Caracas - arrived from shipping company \r\nHamburg Sud with the first shipment that Postar Intertrade Limited sent from the \r\nport of Veracruz for the Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-9.png\")
<\/div><\/div>After the United States sanctions against Samark L\u00f3pez, the name of his company did not appear in the second shipment of CLAPs for Venezuela. Instead, the Venezuelan state corporation Corpovex appears as the shipper of goods from Mexico.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-10.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Samark Lopez's company, Postar Intertrade Limited, bought the food from several Mexican companies and then resold it to state-owned Corpovex.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-11.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Samark Lopez's company, Postar Intertrade Limited, bought the food from several Mexican companies and then resold it to state-owned Corpovex.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-12.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Samark Lopez's company, Postar Intertrade Limited, bought the food from several Mexican companies and then resold it to state-owned Corpovex.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/01082017-13.png\")
<\/div><\/div>Samark Lopez's company, Postar Intertrade Limited, bought the food from several Mexican companies and then resold it to state-owned Corpovex.<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nSamark L\u00f3pez Figures<\/h2>\n\n\n
Carlos \r\nPaparoni, deputy of Primero Justicia (political party), part of the opposition \r\nalliance Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mesa de la Unidad Democr\u00e1tica, MUD) does \r\nnot hesitate to state that Samark L\u00f3pez created a scheme in which the only \r\nbeneficiary is the Venezuelan businessman by overcharging the merchandise or \r\ncharging for insurance and freight through PYP, another company that he owns. \r\n\u201cOptimization is not the business priority. It sets the price and brings what it \r\npleases (...) They have used food to make big money,\" sums up the member of the \r\nparliament.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\ncalculations of the also vice president of the Commission of the Comptroller\u2019s Office \r\nof the National Assembly indicate that the value of the box in Mexico for Postar \r\nIntertrade Limited would not exceed $ 11 and the price in Venezuela would be $ \r\n12.44, but Samark Lopez\u2019s company billed them at $ 22.22. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
Contacted for this report, he insists that Paparoni \"distorts reality\" and that \"we have nothing to hide\"<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
\"That sir \r\n(Carlos Paparoni) having the nerve to affirm that we consciously planned a \r\nscheme to play with the hunger of our people, is something that cannot be \r\nallowed not only to him but to anybody,\" defended the businessman in an \r\ninterview granted to the Miami Herald newspaper and published on July 6. \r\nContacted for this report, he insists that Paparoni \"forges reality\" and that \r\n\"we have nothing to hide\", in reference to the operation of Postar Intertrade \r\nLimited.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Samark \r\nL\u00f3pez says that the contract signed with state-owned company Corpovex after \r\n\"winning\" a tender \"does not reach 120 million dollars\" to trade 3 million CLAP \r\nboxes. A simple division between the amount of the agreement and the merchandise \r\nto be sold shows that each box was sold at almost 40 dollars, a figure that \r\nwould almost triple the value of what the Mexican Ministry of Economy reports \r\nfor each kilogram of products exported to Venezuela and included in the CLAP \r\npantry. According to the businessman, this differential may be associated with \r\nthe \"difficulty of consolidating this type of export of food combos\". \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\"I first tried to do it from the USA, but we needed corn flour and powdered milk\"<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
Sources \r\nfamiliar with the operation of Postar Intertrade Limited, and confirmed by \r\nSamark L\u00f3pez, indicate that the slightly more than 1 million CLAP boxes shipped \r\nin two shipments, were at a cost of about $ 31 each and sold to the Venezuelan \r\ngovernment at $ 39 per unit. That would mean that for each CLAP box sold, the \r\nentrepreneur obtained 8 to 9 dollars, multiplied by 3 million combos, as he \r\nsaid, they would report a total profit of about 25 million dollars in a matter \r\nof months. \" I first tried to do it from the USA, but we needed corn flour and \r\npowdered milk,\" he says about the purchases in Mexico. He said that he worked \r\nwith a profit margin of 22% \"before taxes\".<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
For the \r\nfirst and only two shipments due to the sanctions of OFAC, Samark Lopez invested \r\nnearly 40 million dollars. This total includes \"logistics\" expenses, the payment \r\nto the shipping company, the \"personnel\" of the company and the cardboard boxes, \r\ncosts that almost represent a quarter of the 40 million dollars. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\"As far as I know, it was 3 million. It is a 3-million contract to be delivered in 180 days\"<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n
However, \r\nthe sources consulted assure that the contract that Postar Intertrade Limited \r\nsigned in January of this year with the state-owned Corporaci\u00f3n Venezolana de \r\nComercio Exterior (Corpovex) was for 2 million CLAP boxes that had to be \r\ndispatched 90 days from the signing of the agreement. If so, the price at which \r\nPostar Intertrade Limited would have sold each box to the Venezuelan government \r\nwould be even more expensive, as would the final profit margin for Samark \r\nL\u00f3pez.\" As far as I know, it was 3 million. It is a 3-million contract to be \r\ndelivered in 180 days,\" he insisted.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
In any \r\ncase, Postar Intertrade Limited has only been able to send two shipments to \r\nVenezuela, totaling just over 1,100 containers and almost one million one \r\nhundred thousand CLAP boxes.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
That total \r\nof containers is equivalent to more than half of those sent to Venezuela for \r\nother business with the government, according to a presentation on the \r\nactivities of the company provided by the team of Samark L\u00f3pez. \"In five years, \r\nover 2,094 containers with different supplies were shipped from the United \r\nStates of America and Mexico to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,\" says the \r\npresentation in an attempt to highlight the \"trajectory\" of Postar Intertrade \r\nLimited.<\/p>\n\n