A beautiful woman is the ultimate trophy for a mafia boss, especially if she’s a Venezuelan beauty queen: trained to be gorgeous and submissive, often with some connections to politicians.
Daniel Uzcátegui Specht, a white-collar criminal who, along with his father, delivered a briefcase to Antonini Wilson and stole from PDVSA during Chávez’s era, fell in love with Valentina Figuera, Miss Grand International 2019 and model.
Uzcátegui appears to be married (at least that’s what it looks like on Instagram) to another former Venezuelan model named Verónica Leal. Little is known about her, except that she holds five bank accounts under her name in two tax havens (Switzerland and Barbados) where she laundered $5,000,000 from her husband, the result of the plundering of the oil company.
On the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas, a massive billboard next to the Guaire River advertises Hello C.A., a hair extensions company for women, which is a small business of Figuera in Venezuela for laundering dollars.
Valentina is also part of a VIP modeling agency, whose partner is former Miss Edymar Ramírez, mistress of Alejandro Betancourt, who hides a network of prostitution and international money laundering under the guise of artistic sponsorship.
Uzcátegui’s wife, who owns a real estate business in Spain, is linked to Luis Fernando Vuteff, son-in-law of former metropolitan mayor Antonio Ledezma, who has been accused by the U.S. of being part of a plan to launder $1.2 billion from PDVSA.
Vuteff was arrested in Spain in October 2018 as part of Operation Carabela, which targeted money laundering. This operation led to the arrest of former Deputy Minister of Electric Energy Nervis Villalobos and the seizure of over 130 properties in Madrid and Marbella valued at more than 72 million euros.
Uzcátegui has an arrest warrant issued by the Public Ministry of Venezuela for being involved in a corruption scheme that implicated heavyweight chavista Tareck El Aissami. Daniel Uzcátegui Specht is the son of Diego Uzcátegui Matheus, who returned to PDVSA in 2017 despite the international scandal surrounding Antonini Wilson in Argentina.