T&T FALLOFF FROM $B VENE CORRUPTION SCANDAL

THE fall of Venezuela’s powerful Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami in a billion-dollar corruption scandal is expected to have a major impact on Trinidad and Tobago.

Not only is it likely to further derail the already-sputtering Dragon Gas negotiations, but could affect certain sinister private deals, according to well-informed sources.

El Aissami stepped down from one of the most authoritative jobs in Venezuela just days after several of his close associates were arrested in connection with the entrenched corruption scheme.

President Nicolas Maduro said the arrests were part of a drive against “corruption mafias that have disturbed important economic, judicial and political apparatus of Venezuela.”

Maduro said the accused had embedded themselves in the State-owned oil company PDVSA and the digital mining firm Sunacrip.

In a land in which more than half the population lives under the poverty line, US $23 billion is said to be missing from PDVSA.

The Southern District of the US District Attorney’s Office has had an indictment against El Aissami since 2019, accusing him of, among other things, engaging in international drug trafficking.

The US Department of Justice said then that certain identified people were “looking to fill their pockets with dirty money.”

The American agency said that “it is necessary to impose sanctions against foreign persons seeking to gain power and control by circumventing the law…”

In 2017, the US Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said El Aissami was a “specially designated narcotics trafficker.”

He was involved in “bulk cash smuggling,” the American organisation said.

One of El-Aissami’s key associates allegedly used digital currencies to evade US sanctions.

An earlier independent study said that a Lebanese terrorist group “has helped to turn Venezuela into a hub for the convergence of transnational organised crime and international terrorism.”

El Aissami, who has served as Venezuela’s Vice President, remained in the bosom of the Maduro administration, until the corruption crackdown.

With its gaping borders, Trinidad and Tobago has long been identified as a key route for drug traffickers from Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela.

There have not been any major busts in the long-running trade, which, according to published reports, is tied to organised crime and organisations in Mexico and Colombia.

The Keith Rowley Government has played down the effect on T&T of the turmoil in Venezuela, but experts acknowledged there could be far-reaching implications.

The Guardian newspaper quoted a US-based Latin American energy director as saying that “these events could affect the pace of negotiations with T&T” on the Dragon Gas issue.

There are international media reports that Maduro moved against El Aissami only because the former oil boss had become politically ambitious and was likely to run for the presidency in next year’s election.

El Aissami had “constructed his own power base,” a report said.

Delcy Rodriguez, current Venezuelan Vice President and former experienced diplomat, is now leading the all-important Dragon Gas discussions.

T&T’s team is headed by neophyte politician Stuart Young.

Energy experts in T&T are not confident about the outcome of the negotiations, especially after Maduro slammed the US on the matter of terms of payment.