The headquarters of the state-run Petróleos de Venezuela in Caracas.
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Millions
of dollars have been siphoned from Venezuela’s state oil company into a
small bank almost 6,000 miles away, in Bulgaria, officials there said
on Wednesday as they disclosed an investigation into suspected money
laundering.
The Bulgarian government
has frozen accounts at the bank, and is looking into accounts at other
institutions as well, the officials said at a news conference in the
capital, Sofia. But much of the money wired from Venezuela, they said,
has already been transferred to accounts outside of Bulgaria.
United
States authorities tipped off the Bulgarians to the transfers from
Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, the state oil company, American and
Bulgarian officials said. The Trump administration, which is trying to
force President Nicolás Maduro from power amid a deepening political
crisis, recently imposed economic sanctions on the company.
Dimitar Georgiev, the head of the State Agency for National Security, said of the amounts involved, “We can’t be exact, but millions of euros.”
Officials
declined to name the bank, which they described as small, or to say how
many people were involved in the transfers. On the Bulgarian end, they
said, was a lawyer’s trust account, under which sub-accounts were
created on behalf of third parties.
Some
of the money transfers from the Bulgarian bank listed purposes — like
sponsoring a sports federation in Venezuela or making food purchases —
that officials in Sofia said were fictitious. They said the Bulgarian
accounts were established by a person, whom they did not name, who holds
citizenship in Bulgaria and in other countries, but who was not
currently in the country.
Neither Pdvsa nor the government in Caracas offered immediate comment on the disclosure in Bulgaria.
The
announcement followed a meeting between Bulgarian officials, including
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, and Americans, including the ambassador to
Sofia, Eric Rubin.
“The subject of
the discussion, among other things, was the critical need to stop the
illegal transfer of funds to support the illegal authorities in
Venezuela,” Mr. Rubin told reporters. “Our government is working very
closely with Bulgaria and other members of European Union to ensure that
the wealth of the people of Venezuela is not stolen.”
The news came amid a tense standoff in Venezuela, where Mr. Maduro remains in power despite international pressure. The United States and dozens of other countries have recognized the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, as the interim president.
Mr.
Maduro claimed re-election last year in a vote that was marred by
fraud. Last month, the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared
the election and Mr. Maduro to be illegitimate.
The
Venezuelan economy, beset by unemployment, hyperinflation and severe
shortages, has shrunk by half since 2013, and millions of people have
fled the country. The Trump administration squeezed the Maduro
government further with the sanctions imposed last month on Venezuelan’s
oil company, but the pain is also being felt by ordinary Venezuelans.
For
generations, the national oil company was a pillar of the economy in
Venezuela, a country that has among the world’s largest oil reserves,
and it financed many of the spending programs under Mr. Maduro and his
predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
But Pdvsa has been battered
by lack of investment, cronyism, mismanagement, corruption and the
emigration of experts. In the past five years, the country’s crude oil
production has fallen by about half, and so has the price of oil — a
double blow to the government and the national economy.
Money-laundering
and embezzlement allegations have swirled around Pdvsa. Opposition
politicians contend that as much as $30 billion has gone missing from
the company in recent years.
Richard Pérez-Peña reported from London and Boryana Dzhambazova from Berlin.
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