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“The United States Department of State announces rewards of up to $ 5 million each, for information leading to the arrests or convictions ”of Motta Domínguez and Lugo GómezUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Motta Domínguez, former Minister of Electric Energy of Venezuela, and Lugo Gómez, former Vice Minister of the same portfolio for Finance, Investment and Strategic Alliances, They were charged on June 27, 2019 by the US prosecutor’s office of embezzling public funds for their own benefit.
Motta Domínguez is a retired general who was removed from the post of minister in April 2019, amid the blackouts, while Lugo Gómez was in charge of the acquisitions of Corpoelec. On July 28 of this year, both were barred from entering the United States.
According to the text of the accusation, Motta Domínguez and Lugo Gómez allegedly awarded three Florida-based companies more than $ 60 million in contracts of acquisition with the state Corpoelec (National Electric Corporation) in exchange for money for them.
Plunged into a serious political and economic crisis, Venezuela suffered a series of blackouts last year. The biggest was in March, when a gigantic fault plunged the country into darkness for a week.
Nicolás Maduro attributed them to “electromagnetic attacks” by the United States, in complicity with the opposition, to overthrow him. But power outages are common in the country with the largest oil reserves several years.
Meanwhile, in a separate case, the United States on Tuesday offered rewards of up to $ 20 million for information leading to the arrest of three former police chiefs of the Caracas regime accused of importing drugs into the United States.
Offers up to $ 10 million for Pedro Luis Martín Olivares, former chief of Economic Intelligence of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN); 5 million for Rodolfo McTurk Mora, former head of Interpol in Venezuela; and another 5 million for Jesús Alfredo Itriago, former chief of narcotics of the scientific police (CICPC).
Maduro, who also has a US $ 15 million reward from Washington for information leading to his capture, reacted by denouncing “a ‘cowboy’ type of persecution, a mafia type of persecution” against his former collaborators.
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