MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela: Money scam by opposition leaders unveiled by Maduro’s Government

“We could vaccinate 5 million Venezuelans with that money that is being stolen,” Rodríguez said.

Venezuela’s National Assembly Speaker, Jorge Rodríguez – recognized by Nicolás Maduro’s Government – Tuesday denounced opposition leaders were behind a scam plan to “steal” more than 53 million dollars of Venezuela's money frozen in the United States.

”We are going to show an event that occurred yesterday (Monday), a double scam, a double robbery, with a meeting that took place yesterday with some former deputies, [who are] members of a terrorist group called Voluntad Popular,“ said Rodríguez, of the ruling Chavist party.

Rodríguez said Marco Aurelio Quiñones, Sergio Vergara, Franco Casella, Winston Flores, Adriana Pichardo and Freddy Superlano participated in this meeting.

”They generate a so-called budget to present it to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in order to release the money and deliver the sum of 53,273,133 dollars,” which they would distribute among themselves, according to Rodríguez.

The “continued scam” was revealed during the virtual meeting held the day before by “people who were deputies of the National Assembly” (2015), led by Guaidó, also recognized as interim president of Venezuela by more than 50 countries.

Rodríguez insisted they were “all militants of a terrorist group, called Voluntad Popular.” In the audios released by Rodríguez, Sergio Vergara, appointed by Guaidó as High Commissioner of Strategy for the Crisis, details the “distribution” of resources among the leaders of the so-called “G4,” a grouping of the political parties Primero Justicia, Acción Democrática, Voluntad Popular y Un Nuevo Tiempo.

“The fight is a knife for money, it is not for ideas, political approach, ideological reasons,” said Rodríguez, as he reminded his audience that Vergara, together with analyst JJ Rendón, signed a contract with the Silvercorp company of US national Jordán Gouderau to carry out the so-called “Operation Gideon” to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro.

Rodríguez stressed that the “largest amount of that budget - 23,496,400 dollars” would be handled by Leopoldo López, and corresponds “to what they call the defence of democracy, which is the conspiracy.”

The rest of the money was split in the following manner: “5 million dollars are for Julio Borges, 2 million cash for Guaidó, 4 and a half million for Freddy Guevara. It is a scam, it is no longer a political project,” insisted Rodríguez, who also accused then Deputy Alfonso Marquina of ”asking for 180 thousand dollars or else he would denounce that Guevara and Alberto Ravell (journalist) are being given 5 million dollars to create false positives, psychological warfare, but above all to steal.“

Rodríguez explained that ”since they cannot continue lying to OFAC, (...) they decided to end this pantomime, which they called the flagship program Heroes of Health.“

“How much of that money goes to the people? Not a penny! We could vaccinate 5 million Venezuelans with that money that is being stolen,” Rodríguez lashed out.

Rodríguez also explained the conspirators had to retain “the Alejandro Platz administration company to take care of their money because they first asked OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, but so criminal as he is, he was charging them” way more than Platz.

Rodríguez also ruled out private entrepreneurship obtaining anti-covid vaccines: “The vaccination plan has already been approved by the Ministry of Health. There is a government commitment to vaccinate 100% of Venezuelans. The only entity capable of complying with vaccination is the Ministry of Health,” he said.