Writing by: La Tabla/Data Journalism Platform 22 JAN 2025
On January 5, 2026, the Swiss Federal Council issued a technical and precautionary statement. Two days after Nicolás Maduro’s arrest, it activated a special law (FIAA) to freeze “allfällige Vermögenswerte” — “possible assets” — that he or his circle may have in the country. The objective, according to the text, was to “prevent any asset outflow” as a precautionary measure while Switzerland offered its good offices for a peaceful solution.
However, most major financial and international media outlets, from El País to La Nación, completely ignored the key adjective. They translated “any assets” from English, omitting the precautionary nature of the original terms in German, French, and Italian (“allfällige,” “éventuels,” “eventuali”). Thus, “freezing possible assets” turned into striking headlines: “Switzerland freezes Maduro’s assets.” This preventive measure became, in the eyes of the world, a confirmation of illicit hidden wealth. Consequently, without any verification, the ghost figure of “$10 billion” allegedly blocked emerged.
This is not a mere translation oversight. It is the first link in a massive media stigmatization and criminalization campaign. By omitting the conditional nature, guilt was prejudged, presenting as fact what was merely a legal possibility. The FIAA law, which allows such freezing based solely on a “change of power” without needing to identify assets or prove prior crimes, is ripe for this political use. It punishes by association and suspicion, leveraging the reputation of the Swiss financial system as a hammer of public condemnation.
The result is a double punishment: an international judicial offense against a political figure through an administrative law, alongside a public condemnation driven by a narrative of infinite and corrupt wealth. Legal precision vanished in the jump between languages, taking with it the public’s right to accurate information. All that remained was the convenient fiction of a hidden treasure, a perfect narrative to bury any nuance or doubt beneath the weight of sensationalist headlines.