Photo Courtesy of EUROPAPRESS
The head of the Central Investigating Court number 5 of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz, ordered the search of several properties linked to the former Venezuelan Deputy Minister of Energy, Nervis G. Villalobos, and businessman Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt. The latter was detained last week in London and released just hours later. Information sourced from El periódico.
This action is in response to a request from the Swiss Confederation Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating alleged money laundering operations with ties to Swiss banks. Among the inspected properties is the Castillo de Alamín in Toledo, an old residence of businessman Gerardo Díaz Ferrán, now associated with Betancourt.
Betancourt is part of a group of Venezuelan businessmen known as “bolichicos,” who a decade ago founded Derwick Associates and secured multimillion-dollar contracts for electrical projects during Hugo Chávez’s presidency. According to the NGO Transparency Venezuela in Exile, these contracts totaled over 2.9 billion dollars.
The investigation, led by the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police, aims to determine if Derwick Associates Corporation, in which Betancourt holds shares, was used to channel illicit funds. A police report included in the case Duro Felguera indicates that Villalobos, through the company Ingespre, facilitated awards to Derwick from Venezuelan public companies like Electricidad de Caracas (EDC), coinciding with transfers to his name in Andorra.
Investigative media outlets like Armando.info, El Pitazo, Runrun.es, and El Confidencial have documented that Derwick reportedly channeled a significant portion of its profits through Swiss banking, along with transactions involving Gazprombank Latin America. The Swiss Federal Justice Office confirmed in 2016 that it issued requests to obtain bank records related to Derwick across 18 financial institutions.
Meanwhile, the National Court maintains relevant background: in 2022, Judge María Tardón dismissed one of the details of the PDVSA case in Spain, in which Villalobos, his wife Milagros Coromoto, and Alfonso Garrido Picón were investigated for money laundering at Banco de Madrid. At that time, it was not possible to rule out that the funds were legal.