Second guilty plea in$1.2 billion Panama linked laundering

A former top executive of Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA pleaded guilty on Wednesday, October 31 in a US  court over his role in laundering more than $1 billion of the firm’s looted assets.
A  banker who was based in Panama has already pleaded guilty to his role and is awaiting sentencing. The Swiss Bank he headed in Panama has moved to Brazil.

This is the latest episode of the fraud that diverted funds from PDVSA, the main source of income in a Venezuela Now suffering an economic collapse and massive inflation.

The scheme involved “complicit money managers, brokerage firms, banks and real estate investment firms in the United States, Panama, and elsewhere, operating as a network of professional money launderers,” as well as members of the Venezuelan elite, sometimes known as “boliburgueses,” said the Department of Justice.

Abraham Edgardo Ortega, 51, former executive director of financial planning for PDVSA, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, the US Department of Justice announced.  He is scheduled to be sentenced on January 9 in a Miami court.