{"id":2515,"date":"2018-03-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armando.info\/?p=2515"},"modified":"2018-03-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T00:00:00","slug":"food-sometimes-arrives-to-the-community-money-always-arrives-to-tax-havens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/food-sometimes-arrives-to-the-community-money-always-arrives-to-tax-havens\/","title":{"rendered":"Food sometimes arrives to the Community - Money Always arrives to Tax Havens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The \r\nbusiness of the Local Supply and Production Committees (Claps) has at least two \r\nsides. The head, visible to everyone \u2014thousands of citizens waiting for the \r\nlong-awaited box that the Government distributes with food at subsidized prices; \r\nand the tail, \u2014the eagerness of intermediaries who bill millions of dollars for \r\nthat merchandise. For some, access to the boxes and the range of products in \r\nthem seems a matter of chance and consent by officials, while others, the \r\ntraders, have their fortune guaranteed since the boxes are shipped in containers \r\nfrom ports abroad. The route of prosperity is not for traders in Venezuela only, \r\nbut for certain tax havens as well.<\/p>\n\n\n

The \r\nreward is so profitable that since the middle of last year, when the state plan \r\ncreated in 2016 took shape, despite the framework of what might the biggest \r\neconomic crisis in the history of Venezuela, an endless number of suppliers that \r\nonly the Venezuelan authorities seem to know wanted to be part of the business. \r\nJust a couple of names have been made public, namely Postar \r\nIntertrade Limited<\/A> \r\nand Group \r\nGrand Limited<\/A>, \r\nbut they are certainly not the only ones.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

For \r\nexample, Million Rise Industries Limited is one of the unknown suppliers of the \r\nprogram. It is, like Group Grand Limited\u2014infamous \r\nsince the dismissed public prosecutor general of Venezuela, Luisa Ortega D\u00edaz, \r\nlinked it with Maduro last August <\/A>, \r\nregistered in Hong Kong, the most important tax haven in Asia and the fourth \r\njurisdiction in the Financial Secrecy Index prepared by the Tax Justice Network. \r\nThe Venezuelan government resorted to that company to buy sugar and mayonnaise \r\nfrom Brazil or white rice from Uruguay in what seems to be an odd intermediation \r\nsince Venezuelan state companies directly negotiated for years with companies \r\nfrom both countries.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

For \r\nMillion Rise Industries Limited, the gateway to the business was a contract with \r\nthe Venezuelan Foreign Trade Corporation (Corpovex), a sort of state holding \r\nthat centralizes public imports, chaired by the Major General of Aviation, \r\nGiuseppe Yoffreda Yorio. Thanks to contract CPVX-CJ-CONT-0072-2017, in last \r\nyear\u2019s September, the Hong Kong-registered company billed in a week at least \r\n668.10 metric tons of Uruguayan white rice, dispatched from Montevideo by \r\nDamboriarena Escosteguy, as well as 125 tons of sugar and 72 tons of Brazilian \r\nmayonnaise, shipped from the port of Santos by Tenda Atacado Ltda, a supermarket \r\nchain.

<\/p>\n\n