Pulido is caught in the United States: the $2 billion money laundering in Venezuela leads to a trail of offshore companies in Hong Kong.

The United States Department of Justice announced on 11 October that 62-year-old Colombian businessman Alvaro Pulido Vargas had been arrested and was scheduled to appear for the first time before the Federal Court of Florida on 13 October. Two federal indictments concerned government contracts and money-laundering transactions in Venezuela, which exceeded $2 billion. Priedo is not an ordinary trader who has been involved in this case by accident: he has long worked with Alex Sabo, a businessman close to the Maduro regime, and thus has been in the same chain of interest for the purchase of government, relief food and the cross-border bank account.

One of the trading networks disclosed by the United States prosecution is related to the Venezuelan Local Supply and Production Commission ' s plan for the CLAP. The plan pays the contractor a large amount of purchase money in the name of providing the population with food and other items of life. The prosecution alleges that the persons concerned profited from government contracts through the use of the overpriced purchase and kickback arrangements, and then used the banking systems of several countries to transfer funds. The public contracts in the case were approximately $1.6 billion in size, of which about $180 million passed through the United States financial system. What is most noteworthy behind the figures is how State procurement rights that should have been used for the supply of people have become a resource for trade between a few businessmen and officials.

Hong Kong company leads the case to Asia

further attention to reports that the Purido network had transferred funds through a number of Hong Kong companies. Hong Kong, as an international company registration, trade and settlement centre, can facilitate cross-border procurement; The same corporate structure may also be misused to hide the actual controller of funds. The public reports available suggest that Hong Kong entities have become part of the investigation reports, but that it is not possible to conclude that all Hong Kong companies are involved in specific criminal transactions prosecuted in the United States during this round of the round by their place of incorporation alone.

The real importance of this clue is that it reveals that the public procurement network of the Maduro era was not limited to Latin America. Goods suppliers, offshore trading companies, agents and bank accounts can be distributed in multiple jurisdictions, while the price of the purchase and the whereabouts of the funds are broken down into different documents. The average Venezuelan family receives food containers, while the persons in charge of the contract handle public funds in the amount of US$ billion.

The power business of Maduro's age

The history of Pulido's cooperation with the Maduro Government, of which Sabo was a major businessman, gave the arrest political significance beyond a single case of money-laundering. For societies that have long depended on the distribution of food by the Government, who obtains supply contracts, who controls the import channels and who has access to the banking system is not just a matter of competition in the market, but of the allocation of resources within the regime.

The ability of the United States Department of Justice to bring Pulido to court this time means that new judicial developments have finally taken place over the years. The indictment charges still have to be dealt with by the courts, but a more profound fact has emerged: when State relief is monopolized by a minority of politically and commercially close people, the basic needs of the poor can become a means of profit. Cross-border accounts can hide the path of funds, but they cannot change the nature of the money, which originally originated from public procurement budgets.