On 31 August, BNN Bloomberg reported that Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui, a former legal counsel to Venezuela’s powerful oil ministry, had appeared in federal court in Miami in connection with a years-long bribery and laundering investigation. He pleaded not guilty to charges that he took part in a billion-dollar corruption scheme that helped torpedo the oil-rich nation’s economy. Urdaneta fled Venezuela and was picked up at the Colombian border by US federal agents, who took him to Florida. It is said that Urdaneta could provide US prosecutors with a view into the circle of President Nicolas Maduro and the business elite who rose to riches in Venezuela, several of whom are the focus of the US investigation of corruption.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/ex-venezuela-official-appears-in-miami-court-after-fleeing-1.1487512
