In just 21 months, United Petroleo Corp, established in Panama and lacking experience in the industry, secured contracts—some just before its dissolution—to sell Venezuelan hydrocarbons in global markets worth nearly $500 million. Behind it is Rogers Ramírez Dorante, a friend and classmate of Antonio Pérez Suárez, the then Vice President of Trade and Supply at the state oil company. Both military officers are currently detained in connection with the Pdvsa-Crypto scandal.
The story of United Petroleo Corp (note that the word “petróleo” appears without an accent in its records) could have been a success in the oil business for its almost instantaneous billing of hundreds of millions of dollars. However, this seemingly entrepreneurial saga is actually part of a recent embezzlement crisis at Pdvsa through the sale of Venezuelan crude. This scandal led to a purge within the government, resulting in the resignation and eventual ostracism of the powerful Minister of Oil, Tareck El Aissami, as well as the detention of top officials at the state oil company and businesspeople close to chavismo, accused of corruption.
To ensure massive profits, United Petroleo Corp did not require large investments in oil fields, as multinational companies typically do, nor did it have to be listed on the stock market or wait for a crude oil price boom in international markets. Its rise was simple yet meteoric: it registered in Panama in March 2021 and, despite dissolving less than two years later, in November 2022, it obtained contracts from Pdvsa for the sale of hydrocarbons amounting to almost $500 million. From this sum derived from oil and derivative sales, it ultimately owed over $435 million to the state-owned company.
These figures made the little-known company one of Pdvsa’s largest debtors. By the end of 2022, the total amount owed for unpaid oil selling to dozens of newly established intermediaries, like United Petroleo Corp, which Pdvsa supposedly turned to as a lifeline to evade sanctions imposed in 2019 by the Trump administration, ranged between $8,406 million and $13,338 million, as revealed by Armando.Info in various reports based on leaked documents from the state oil company.
What was the magic formula for United Petroleo Corp to secure hundreds of millions in contracts in such a short time? Its close relationship with Antonio José Pérez Suárez, the Army colonel who has served as the Vice President of Trade and Supply at Pdvsa since February 2020, a strategic position within the Venezuelan oil industry.
In March, Antonio Pérez Suárez was arrested as part of the investigations into the corruption scheme dubbed Pdvsa-Crypto. He was referred to as the “main leader of the corrupt structure,” according to Tarek William Saab, the Attorney General appointed in 2017 by the fraudulent Constituent Assembly, when discussing Colonel Pérez Suárez.
Now, one of the documents seized by security forces during raids at Pdvsa’s headquarters, contained in the convoluted and extensive accusatory file from the chavista Public Ministry, is crucial in confirming that behind the operation of the fleeting United Petroleo Corp was the retired Army lieutenant colonel, Rogers Ignacio Ramírez Dorante, who is now also detained, a classmate and friend of Pérez Suárez.
“This citizen [Rogers Ramírez] is closely linked to the company United Petroleo Corp, which benefited from the assignment of crude,” summarizes the judicial document prepared by the prosecutors in the Pdvsa-Cripto case.
Rogers Ramírez Dorante was detained last March in connection with the Pdvsa-Crypto corruption scheme. His closeness to Antonio Pérez Suárez was key in securing contracts to transport Venezuelan oil. Credits: Screenshot from VTV.
From the Vice Presidency of Trade and Supply at Pdvsa, Colonel Antonio Pérez Suárez (in the green shirt) favored his friend and classmate Rogers Ramírez Dorante. Photo taken from @fundVasquez.
Two men, one destiny
The closeness between Antonio Pérez Suárez and Rogers Ramírez Dorante dates back to their youth as officers. At ages 24 and 26, respectively, they graduated from the Military Academy of Venezuela in 1999 as part of the promotion named Colonel Miguel Antonio Vásquez, sponsored by then-newly elected President Hugo Chávez. “The first promotion to graduate during the revolution,” some alumni have since repeated. The most distinguished officer from this promotion, ranked number one, was Igbert Marín Chaparro, a lieutenant colonel arrested on March 2, 2018, and accused of forming a “conspiratorial group” along with other military personnel.
Antonio Pérez Suárez and Rogers Ramírez Dorante ranked 114th and 106th among the 158 graduates of their class. From then until the end of March, when they were detained and presented, as a form of propaganda, dressed in orange jumpsuits before a tribunal set up at Sebin, the regime’s political police, their paths ran parallel: the rise of one in public administration favored the other in business ventures and lifestyle.
“The rapid increase of that citizen’s wealth is evident,” states the accusation regarding Rogers Ramírez Dorante. Just two months before his arrest, unaffected by the crisis already brewing at Pdvsa and that would eventually drag him down with Pérez Suárez, he was in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest oil producers, but not for the business of United Petroleo Corp; he was exploring the country’s deserts in a Toyota Land Cruiser, as his son’s co-pilot in the Dakar Rally, one of the most famous in its kind, which requires deep pockets to sponsor the adventure. “I’m really curious to see what the Dakar world is like and we are preparing physically and mentally,” Ramírez said to the Dakar website as a preamble to the competition, which took place from December 31, 2022, to January 15.
Only two months before his arrest, Rogers Ramírez Dorante participated as co-pilot to his son in the Dakar rally in a Toyota Land Cruiser. Credit: Photo taken from the Dakar website.
The Prosecutor’s accusation highlights the “rapid wealth increase” that Rogers Ramírez Dorante displayed. Credit: Photo taken from @Vzla4x4sinlimites.
Two months later, according to the judicial file, police forces raided some of Rogers Ramírez’s properties, including two apartments in the Premier 27 complex, one of the most luxurious and exclusive residential projects in Caracas, located in the Campo Alegre neighborhood. There, the smallest apartment is 321 square meters, according to the builder’s specifications, and Rogers Ramírez kept two 2021 and 2022 model Toyota SUVs, a BMW motorcycle, and another KTM motorcycle “model cross 250 cc, for competition,” among other assets.
The business connection between Antonio Pérez Suárez and Rogers Ramírez Dorante began before the colonel reached the executive ranks at Pdvsa. Antonio Pérez Suárez favored Ramírez Dorante’s businesses, such as Transervi R&G and Venezolana Distribuidora 2017, from the Socialist Cement Corporation, as noted in the National Contractor Registry (RNC). In addition to the Socialist Cement Corporation, Pérez Suárez also directed the Socialist Corporation of the Automotive Sector and the Pueblo Soberano Foundation, among other positions, where he also benefited some of his direct relatives.
Specifically, Transervi R&G, Venezolana Distribuidora 2017, and VD Import Tires, a tire trader from the state of Lara, where Rogers Ramírez Dorante hails, and which proudly sponsored his Dakar venture, are highlighted by prosecutors as part of a “criminal structure” in which these and other companies moved resources from the oil business. In some of these, Ramírez Dorante was a partner of Manuel Ramón Afonso López, whom the Prosecutor’s Office has also accused, along with his brother Juan Manuel Afonso López, of involvement in the Pdvsa-Crypto case, but has not been able to detain. Manuel Afonso López was also a neighbor in the same Premier 27 residential complex.
“Rogers Ramírez is Pérez Suárez’s best friend; he handles everything,” claims a source familiar with their operations with Pdvsa, who prefers to remain anonymous. Only this trust explains why Pdvsa handed over crude loads valued at hundreds of millions of dollars to a newly formed company without experience in the oil sector, such as United Petroleo Corp, which ultimately lost these amounts for Pdvsa’s revenue at the time of negotiating with traders in China’s ports. This was the case, for example, with the shipment from the ship Amoroza, valued at $82 million, as detailed in the Prosecutor’s file, or other shipments sold without any payment entering Pdvsa’s coffers.
In the accusation file, prosecutors highlight several irregularities in the selection of United Petroleo Corp: it was not registered in the Unified Registry of Qualified Export Sales Clients (Ruccve), “it does not possess any type of documentation or support for criteria,” only “the approval form for registration with Ruccve by exception,” and the crude deliveries were made “only with the approved form, which had to be authorized by the Vice President of Trade and Supply, Antonio Pérez Suárez.”
The Main Evidence
During a raid conducted by security forces on May 3 at Pdvsa’s headquarters, prosecutors discovered a parallel office named “Special Work Unit,” which was effectively Antonio Pérez Suárez’s office. One of the documents found there was a report from the law firm Venatt International Advisor regarding what happened with a shipment of one million barrels of heavy crude oil of the Boscán type, transported by the ship Amoroza.
Although it was Pérez Suárez’s own office that reached out to Venatt International Advisor to investigate what had happened with the cargo, in the end, the effort revealed that Rogers Ramírez Dorante was hiding behind the façade of United Petroleo Corp. In May 2022, Captain Heinrich Chapellín, a trusted man of Pérez Suárez and now also detained, contacted the lawyers of Venatt International Advisors to discuss the events surrounding the tanker Amoroza, whose cargo was supposed to be delivered in a Chinese port, but for which Pdvsa never received any payment.