MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan pleads guilty of acting as Chavez agent in US

The Uruguayan national Wanseele Paciello, 40, pleaded guilty before a federal US court in Miami of acting as an agent for the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in covering up a plot to influence Argentina's presidential election.

Paciello admitted on Wednesday that he and four other men tried to silence Florida businessman Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson who last August 4 was caught by Argentine Customs at Ezeiza airport with a suitcase containing 800,000 US dollars. Prosecutors say the cash was intended for the campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who was elected president of Argentina October 28, last year. Wanseele allegedly admitted that he ''knowingly acted'' as an agent of the Venezuelan government, and said he was related by a former marriage to a Venezuelan intelligence agent who coordinated the cover-up. Wanseele's plea leaves one defendant in US custody to stand trial next September. Franklin Duran, a Venezuelan businessman arrested with the others last December won't plead guilty, advanced his lawyer. Defendants Carlos Kauffmann and Moises Maionica, both 36, have pleaded guilty. Antonio Jose Canchica Gomez, 37, remains a fugitive. The 800.000 US dollars suitcase man Antonini flew last August from Caracas to Argentina on a private jet with officials of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned energy company and Argentine officials. After returning to the US he cooperated with federal prosecutors and wore a hidden recording device to tape meetings and telephone calls with Kauffmann, Duran and Maionica as they pressured him to remain silent about the origins of the cash in the suitcase, prosecutors say. The men urged Antonini to tell no one that the cash was intended for Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner campaign, according to the indictment. They acted under the direction of employees of DISIP, as the Venezuelan intelligence agency is known, allege US prosecutors.