While many of the key players in the Venezuelan economic embezzlement face legal proceedings or are on international blacklists, Armando “Coco” Capriles has pulled off a rare feat: he has managed to stay off the radar. No sanctions, no active legal scandals, and not too much public exposure. And yet, he has been at the very heart of the model that turned chavismo into a profitable business for a well-connected elite.
Grandson of the publisher Miguel Ángel Capriles Ayala, Coco didn’t inherit the media empire, but he did inherit his knack for adapting to power. He transitioned from the publishing business to opaque financial operations that flourished with exchange rate control, structured notes, and inflated contracts. His connections with key figures like Nelson Merentes, Vielma Mora, and Rafael Ramírez granted him privileged access to the business of multiplying preferential dollars in Swiss accounts.
The leaks known as Suisse Secrets revealed that he managed accounts at Credit Suisse with balances exceeding 140 million Swiss francs, funds that circulated during the peak of foreign currency extraction between 2014 and 2016. Capriles was part of the same circle as Moris Beracha, Diego Marynberg, Gilberto Morales, and Francisco Illarramendi, the latter convicted in the U.S. for fraud linked to PDVSA’s pension funds.
But he didn’t just move money. He also inflated assets. His name appears in sales to the Venezuelan state at inflated prices, such as the Centro Capriles or the Torre Provincial. At the same time, he did business with sanctioned individuals like Raúl Gorrín, who admitted to selling him a vessel for over $280,000.
The Leap to Europe: Castles Instead of Contracts
Now outside Venezuela, Capriles has found a new playing field in Spain, where he lives with his wife, Corina Mileo Trotta, a descendant of noble families. From there, he has developed a strategy to cleanse reputation, capital, and family name. Through companies like Monina Inversiones and Sunny Selirpac, with over 19 million euros in capital, he has consolidated a European fortune while seeking to embed his family into local nobility.
The most symbolic episode of this ambition occurred in 2024, when Capriles pushed for his daughter Camila Capriles Mileo to receive the title of Marquise of Irache, supported by a supposed maternal lineage linked to Christopher Columbus. Camila, just 18, studies in New Orleans and spends time in New York, Paris, and Madrid, always aboard a Gulfstream G-450 private jet. Her presence at the exclusive birthday of former King Juan Carlos I in Abu Dhabi, on a private flight with Spanish nobility, confirmed her role as a visible face of the new Bolivarian aristocracy.
The Logistics of Power: Planes, Banks, and Gold
Few things reveal as much as how someone moves around. In Capriles’ case, his connection to the jet N118T, a private aircraft frequently used for trips between Venezuela, the U.S., and the Caribbean, allows for routes that coincide with sensitive financial operations. Although he does not appear as the formal owner, various sources link him to the indirect use and control of the plane, employed in schemes of asset placement and movements of key operators.
This same environment connects Capriles with two key figures in his network: banker Juan Carlos Escotet, owner of Banesco and Abanca, and operator Antonio Luis González Morales, a pivotal figure in schemes for evading oil sanctions.
His relationship with Escotet spans decades: from the days of Bancentro to joint investments in offshore structures and shared financial vehicles in Europe and America. In the Suisse Secrets, several accounts connected to operators close to Escotet appear intertwined with companies used by Capriles, suggesting a common architecture to shield opaque capitals.
With González Morales, the relationship is more operational. Both are linked to a real estate network in Florida, with shared companies used to acquire properties, move capitals, and cover investments. González Morales was also indicated for using fleets of tankers and companies in Seychelles to violate sanctions and move Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil through intermediaries like Murtaza Lakhani.
Blood Gold: Triangulations and Turkish Banks
One of the darkest episodes in Capriles’ history is his alleged involvement in the Venezuelan gold laundering scheme. Through his connections with Olivier Couriol and Noor Capital, Capriles reportedly acted as an intermediary between the BCV and buyers in the United Arab Emirates, triangulating shipments through Mali, Turkey, and banks like TC Ziraat Bankasi.
The key to the scheme was the use of fake documents from the mining company Wassoul’Or, controlled by Aliou Boubacar Diallo, to justify the legal origin of the gold. In reality, these were shipments coming from illegal mines in the Mining Arc, flown out of the country and monetized in cash, cryptocurrencies, or offshore accounts.
Capriles is marked as a key operator in the logistics and international placement of that gold, part of an operation designed not only to move money but also to evade sanctions imposed on Maduro’s regime.
An Oligarch Without Consequences
The most surprising aspect of Capriles’ case isn’t his wealth, ambition, or even his connections with chavismo. It’s his ability to avoid consequences. While lower-ranking operators face extraditions or seizures, he has managed to move in silence, protect himself with frontmen, and construct a narrative of an “exiled businessman” that has allowed him to integrate into European financial and noble circles.
At its core, Coco Capriles represents a new kind of Latin American oligarch: one who seeks neither political prominence nor media exposure, but rather social legitimization and access to the global elite. A name that left Caracas behind to embrace long surnames, hereditary jewels, and dinners with marquises. Yet, behind this lineage, he drags the same old mechanisms: opacity, embezzlement, and structural corruption.