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<\/div><\/div>Official Gazettte<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/28102018-02.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div>Official Gazettte<\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nPerdomo \r\nMata, the new president of Minerven, was a director of a company related to Alex \r\nSaab, Trading Energy and Coal (Trenaco), registered in Caracas in October 2014 \r\nand dissolved two years later. Perdomo Mata held the position of \"general \r\nassistant manager\" of that mirror company of the Colombian Trenaco, also \r\nliquidated, the head office of which leads to Switzerland. Being a stranger in \r\nthe oil sector, in August 2015, it obtained a contract with Petr\u00f3leos de \r\nVenezuela (PDVSA) that was later dissolved for 4,500 million \r\ndollars.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Saab \r\nnever appeared in the company's records, but a Reuters investigation revealed \r\nthat he \u201cwas \r\nin full control of Trenaco<\/A>\u201d \r\nafter reviewing \"internal correspondence\" and \"Whatsapp audio files with Saab's \r\nparticipation.\" In addition to this information from the news agency published \r\nin July 2016, there are now other clues that reaffirm the relationship between \r\nSaab and Trenaco.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
The \r\nCaracas headquarters of Trenaco, where he was general assistant manager of the \r\ncurrent president of Minerven, is in the same business tower Centro Galip\u00e1n in \r\nEl Rosal, east of the capital, where the office of Fondo Global de Construcci\u00f3n \r\n(Global Construction Fund) is located. With this structure, seven years ago Alex \r\nSaab - together with his partner \u00c1lvaro Pulido Vargas, also Colombian- \r\nbegan \r\nhis career as a contractor of chavism<\/I> \r\nby signing a millionaire agreement in the Miraflores Palace for the construction \r\nof prefabricated homes<\/A>. \r\nThis is ruled out as a simple coincidence when verifying that both companies \r\nregistered the same telephone number in the National Register of Contractors \r\n(RNC). \"Thanks for calling Fondo Global de Construcci\u00f3n. Your call will be \r\nanswered soon,\" repeats an answering machine before an endless musical thread \r\nthat stops any possibility of asking about that \r\nrelationship.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nAnother \r\nlink between the president of Minerven and Alex Saab is evident in the \r\ncommercial registry of Istanbul, the main Turkish city. Marilyns Proje Yatirim, \r\nthe company handpicked by President Maduro to create the joint venture Sociedad \r\nAn\u00f3nima Miner\u00eda Binacional Turqu\u00eda Venezuela (Mibiturven), recorded there two \r\ntelephone numbers. No one answers them, but they are the same used by Mulberry \r\nProje Yatirim, \r\nanother \r\npiece of the business plot with which Alex Saab and \u00c1lvaro Pulido Vargas hold \r\nthe power of the sale of food for the CLAP state program since late \r\n2016.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Perdomo \r\nMata, in addition to president of the state-owned Minerven, is listed as \r\npresident of Aleaciones Met\u00e1licas del Pac\u00edfico, a Panamanian firm created on \r\nAugust 5, 2015, where he shares the board with Amir Nassar Tayupe, Alex Saab\u2019s \r\nlawyer in Venezuela, who is representing him in a lawsuit against four \r\njournalists of Armando.info. This company was registered with a capital of \r\n10,000 dollars, and one of its purposes is to \"develop production and marketing \r\nof semi-finished and finished, hot rolled, cold and coated, long and flat steel \r\nproducts, and in general, the construction of physical infrastructure, technical \r\nassistance and technological development, particularly in cases of use of iron, \r\nsteel and other metals, and especially those specific to the steel, industrial \r\nand mineral activity in general, as well as related and complementary activities \r\nincluding the export, import and marketing of products that the company \r\nextracts, produces or acquires from other \r\nsources.\"<\/p>\n\n
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<\/div><\/div><\/a><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\nThe Turkish Path<\/h2>\n\n\n
The \r\nshadow of Alex Saab in the mining business and its relationship with Turkish \r\ncompanies occurs just as Nicol\u00e1s Maduro seems to be focused on a simultaneous \r\neffort to entrust foreign partners with the rare and precious mineral deposits \r\nof the so-called Orinoco Mining Arc, and close relationships with the regime of \r\nRecep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, an alliance of states that support each other in \r\ncircumventing Washington's financial sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
It \r\ndoes not seem a coincidence that, after the visits of several Venezuelan \r\nministers to the Eurasian country in recent months, Turkish products began to \r\nappear in the CLAP boxes. Furthermore, at the same time, the shipments of tons \r\nof Venezuelan gold began to be dispatched to Turkey in an exchange barely \r\nexplained by the authorities.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
\"It \r\nis an agreement established between Turkey and the Central Bank of Venezuela \r\n(BCV), which is basically for the refining of gold,\" V\u00edctor Cano, Minister of \r\nMining Development, told Reuters last July in response to accusations by \r\nopposition members of the parliament, regarding the nature of the business. \"It \r\nis not smuggling to Turkey. There are agreements entered into by between the BCV \r\nand Turkey,\" he insisted when questioned about the exploitation of the so-called \r\nMining Arc, an area of ??nearly 112,000 square kilometers in southern Venezuela. \r\nNicol\u00e1s Maduro aims with its exploitation to find increasingly urgent revenues \r\nin the face of the collapse of the oil industry, the traditional provider of \r\ncurrency for the Republic.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Marshall \r\nBillingslea, assistant secretary for terrorist financing of the US Treasury \r\nDepartment, this week described the swap between the two countries as a \r\n\"looting\" and reported that 21 metric tons of gold left Venezuela in recent \r\nmonths. \"We have seen Turkish companies replace many of the food companies that \r\nmade incursions into the corruption related to the CLAP food boxes program,\" the \r\nAssociated Press (AP) reported.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
According \r\nto the Greek mythology, the kingdom of Midas ?the \r\nmonarch who died of hunger after taking his prodigious capacity to turn \r\neverything he touched into gold to the absurd? \r\nwas in the territory of the present-day Turkey. Alex Saab, precisely found a new \r\nformula in Turkey to camouflage his trading operations in food sales for the \r\nCLAP until then centralized in Group Grand Limited, a company incorporated in \r\nHong Kong, whereby \r\nhe achieved at least two contracts with the Venezuelan Government of around 700 \r\nmillion dollars for the supply of food<\/A>, \r\nmostly purchased in Mexico, and another three with the Ministry \r\nof Health for around 200 million dollars for the sale of medicines from \r\nIndia<\/A>.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
On \r\nOctober 18, Mexican authorities pointed to the corporate network entwined from \r\nGroup Grand Limited to buy \"low quality\" products in that country and export \r\nthem to Venezuela with \"overpricing.\" But Alex Saab and \u00c1lvaro Pulido Vargas \r\nalready had another firm in Istanbul, Mullberry Proje \r\nYatirim.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t