Amidst the ruins of the Hugo Chávez housing complex in Playa Grande, La Guaira state (formerly Vargas until 2019), a shocking sight greeted both survivors and international reporters who arrived at the disaster site hours after the double earthquake that shook Venezuela on June 24: twisted metal skeletons, sunk into the ground or tilted, some scorched by fires, covered with something that appeared to be foam rubber at first glance.
The alleged foam rubber was actually fiberglass that served as thermal insulation between the drywall walls and the light blue plastic beams that adorned the facades of the 196 towers constructed there by the Turkish company Summa between 2011 and 2015, a company previously unknown in the country but with experience in erecting civil works such as stadiums and airports in Africa and Eastern Europe.
The late Hugo Chávez described the project as “a marvel” and emphasized the “very appropriate technology for this coastal area” during a rushed inspection visit broadcast on television in August 2012, when the construction was still in progress and the Eternal Commander was entering his final presidential campaign.
Documents now obtained by Armando.info for this story reveal a tangled web of favors and relationships between Venezuelan regime officials and Summa executives after securing the contract, as well as the actual costs of the project, which averaged up to $76,287 per housing unit.
In the making of this other “marvel,” but one rooted in influence rather than urbanism, two names stand out. They are Selim Bora, president and son of the founder of Summa, and José Gregorio Bracho Reyes, who served for 15 years as Venezuela’s diplomatic representative in Turkey, first as consul and later as ambassador. The upward trajectories of both coincided, feeding into each other: Summa clinched business in Venezuela while Bracho Reyes expanded his profile in diplomacy, an area in which he had minimal experience.
Proximity and parallel paths culminated in a mutual exchange of perks, including a motion by Bracho to appoint Bora as Honorary Consul of Venezuela in a luxurious resort city on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
Tableau of Wonders
A key date in understanding these parallel roads is December 9, 2010. On that day, Selim Bora and José Gregorio Bracho met in Caracas, where Bracho had served as the Venezuelan consul in Ankara since September 2008.
The circumstances of their meeting are recorded in a narrative by Selim Bora that is still available on the company’s website. “A few days later, on December 16, Mr. Bracho came to the Gran Meliá Hotel and rushed us to the Presidential Palace of Miraflores, where President Chávez wanted to meet with us,” he recalls. Days earlier, on December 12, Bracho Reyes had taken the Turkish businessman to the Casa Amarilla – the historic home of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Plaza Bolívar, Caracas – where they met with Nicolás Maduro, who was Foreign Minister at that time.
The relationship between Selim Bora and José Gregorio Bracho didn’t end with that successful dash to secure Summa’s first lucrative contract in Venezuela. In fact, it grew close. So close that two and a half years later, in February 2013, while the second phase of the Playa Grande development was underway, Bracho Reyes proposed Bora’s appointment as “Honorary Consul General of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the province of Bodrum-Mugla [sic].”
This is noted in a letter that Bracho Reyes sent to his brother-in-law, then Deputy Foreign Minister for Europe, Calixto Ortega Ríos, who is now a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) and a former deputy in the National Assembly from the government-aligned United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). “I appreciate the attention you will give us in this matter and look forward to a positive response from you, knowing that all efforts in this regard will contribute to achieving the objectives and goals proposed by the Bolivarian Revolution,” reads the letter dated February 3, 2013.
By that date, and since August 2012, Bracho was already serving as Venezuela’s Ambassador to Turkey. In his formal request to the Foreign Ministry, he only referred to Selim Bora as president of the “construction company Summa,” without elaborating on any other details of his biography that would make him deserving of an honorary consul position in Venezuela.
Selim Bora would later justify his wish to become Venezuela’s consul in a letter addressed to Nicolás Maduro in December 2014, by then president. In the letter, the businessman highlighted that by then, Summa had completed the construction of 2,336 homes in Playa Grande, while expressing his willingness to “represent the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and ensure its prosperity, both in my country and in front of international organizations and personalities.” He also expressed his desire to “defend and convey the principles and objectives laid out in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as ensure the principles of the Bolivarian Revolution.”
Bodrum is a coastal city in Muğla province, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, along the Mediterranean Sea. It corresponds to the location of the Halicarnassus of Caria from the classic Hellenic civilization – birthplace of historian Herodotus and home to the Mausoleum, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – but its modern development has transformed this city into a resort for the rich and famous, often dubbed the “Turkish Saint-Tropez.” And it was on the verge of becoming Bora’s diplomatic destination.
However, sources consulted for this report confirmed that Bora’s appointment as consul never materialized. But this did not prevent the Turk and Bracho Reyes from continuing to cultivate their relationship after Summa secured the contract to build the homes in Playa Grande.
“The relationship between Summa and Bracho Reyes was evident. For years they sought to monopolize the business of Turkish entrepreneurs in Venezuela,” stated a businessman who requested Armando.info to keep his name confidential. He added that at least in 2017, other Turkish entrepreneurs complained to Ankara’s authorities about the duo’s push to channel their businesses through the filter of the embassy and the Venezuelan foreign ministry.
By 2017, Bora had secured the presidency of the Turkey-Venezuela Business Council. The vice president of this entity was Erhan Sengel, another Turkish businessman who participated in that initial meeting with Bracho Reyes in Caracas in December 2010. Within this Business Council, Bora faced the then president of Venezuela’s Central Bank (BCV), Calixto Ortega Sánchez, son of Calixto Ortega Ríos – Bracho Reyes’ brother-in-law – and current representative of Delcy Rodríguez’s interim government to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Documents reviewed for this report do not verify whether Maduro considered the appointment of Summa’s president as Venezuela’s honorary consul in Turkey. However, it can be confirmed that almost simultaneously with Selim Bora’s expressed desire for a diplomatic position, on July 30, 2014, José Gregorio Bracho Reyes and his wife, Sara Elena Flores Vargas, acquired an apartment. But not in the Summa project in Playa Grande, rather in another coastal locale, that of Barcelona, Spain.
The property is now valued between €321,000 and €383,000, according to estimates from the real estate platform Idealista.com. The apartment also serves as the headquarters for Floret Import and Export S.L., which Bracho Reyes and his wife registered in Barcelona on February 6, 2023. Neither Bracho Reyes nor his wife responded to the interview request sent by Armando.info via email.
Choosing a home in Barcelona doesn’t seem coincidental. There are indications that it may stem from nostalgia. Bracho Reyes studied in Barcelona and, between 1998 and 2004, worked at a branch of the French FNAC in the Catalan capital as an “expert in world music,” according to his résumé.
It was only in 2006 that he held his first diplomatic position as part of the staff of the Venezuelan embassy in Bolivia. But within just two years, in 2008, he secured the consul position in the Turkish capital.
A niece of his, Nathalie Ramos Bracho, also held a position at the Venezuelan consulate in Barcelona between 2015 and 2019, according to documents reviewed for this story.
‘Drywall’, Plastic, and Metal at Gold Prices
The attempt to appoint Selim Bora as consul leads to another finding: at what cost the Hugo Chávez urban development was built.
Regarding this, the initial version of the cost of Summa’s housing project in Playa Grande was presented to the public by Ricardo Molina, then Minister of Housing and the principal responsible for the Great Housing Mission Venezuela. On August 8, 2011, Molina announced the agreement for $101 million to build 1,488 homes. Prorated, that amount indicated each housing unit was going to cost $67,876, clearly higher than the $45,000 that in 2016 the Venezuelan Chamber of Construction (CVC) estimated as the average for social housing.
Nonetheless, that initial value continued to rise. Just a year later, in August 2012, while accompanying Hugo Chávez on his tour of the site, then Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez announced that the first 1,488 homes had required an investment of $113 million. This figure raised the price of each housing unit to $75,940.
However, documents obtained for this report suggest that the price paid for each unit in the Hugo Chávez development was even higher.
A “reference letter” that Minister Ricardo Molina himself signed to back Selim Bora’s application for the honorary consul position dated November 8, 2013, stated that “the value of the work completed” in the first and second phases of the project reached $178,206,859. This exact amount, divided by the 2,336 homes built by then, translates to each prefabricated apartment costing $76,287, almost 70% higher than the CVC’s estimate.
Following the double earthquake on June 24, no authorities in Venezuela have commented on the situation in the housing complex constructed by Summa. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez evaded a specific question about the quality of those apartments in a press conference with international correspondents on July 2.
Days later, Summa issued a press release stating that they had adhered to Venezuelan regulations, especially the 2001 Seismic Code that “served as the basis for the project,” but whose parameters “may have proven insufficient in several aspects,” when compared to the strength of the double earthquake measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on June 24. “Technical assessments and evaluations of the earthquake’s effects are being conducted by the competent public authorities,” the company stated in its July 7 release.
As of this edition’s closure, neither Summa nor the company’s corporate communications agency had responded to the questions sent via email.
Recently El Pitazo reported that authorities had begun the demolition and removal of debris throughout the development, a task that could lead to the loss of crucial forensic evidence needed to accurately understand the causes behind the sinking of the towers built by Summa. “Each collapsed building represents an irreplaceable source of information,” declared the architect Mario Leghio, president of the Construction Chamber of La Guaira, to that media outlet.
But the hurry to demolish the remnants of the Hugo Chávez development and clear away the debris does not yet erase the traces of the web of favors and relationships that formed between Venezuelan regime officials and the Turkish company.
