Venezuela Firmly Condemns Theft of CITGO by Washington and Far-Right Opposition (+CITGO 6)

Orinoco Tribune, June 17, 2024 —

Through a statement, Venezuela firmly condemned the continued dispossession of CITGO Petroleum Corporation by the United States government in conjunction with Venezuelan far-right politicians belonging to the Unitary Platform (PUD), which is running in the upcoming presidential elections on July 28.

The statement was released this Monday, June 17, by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez via her social media accounts.

“We strongly condemn the theft of CITGO by the US government, Leopoldo López, Juan Guaidó, Julio Borges, and a caste of neofascist oligarchs. Venezuela will not recognize any type of fraudulent transfer of ownership,” wrote Vice President Rodríguez on social media.

“The people of Venezuela, in a great national union, will defend its heritage and will apply implacable justice to those who plotted this dispossession against the Republic,” she added in her post containing the statement.

Reuters reported last week that CITGO’s illegal board, appointed by the Venezuelan far-right opposition in collusion with the White House, began receiving offers to buy CITGO, which has the seventh-largest oil refining capacity on US soil. CITGO belongs to Venezuela’s publically owned oil company, PDVSA, and, thus, to all Venezuelans. Since the launching of Juan Guaidó’s failed “interim government” in 2019, the Venezuelan government lost control of this important asset abroad.

The United Kindom news service explained that some companies offering to buy CITGO are the same that have initiated international lawsuits against Venezuela, such as ConocoPhillips, Crystallex, Gold Reserve, hedge fund Elliott Investment Management, and a group of creditors represented by Centerview Partners.

The Venezuelan statement highlighted that United States authorities use “the deception of a judicial procedure for the forced sale of shares clearly contrary to the law,” thus continuing with the multiform aggression against Venezuela to plunder the Venezuelan people and their assets.

Below is the unofficial translation of the statement:

The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela firmly condemns the dispossession process of the company Citgo Petroleum Corporation (CITGO), which continues to be carried out by the authorities of the United States of America under the deception of a judicial procedure for the forced sale of shares clearly contrary to the law.

CITGO is an important strategic asset of the Venezuelan national oil company, PDVSA. Its forced sale constitutes a new episode of the multiform aggression carried out by the institutions of the United States against Venezuela with the aim of plundering the Venezuelan people of the assets that belong to them in open transgression of the norms that govern peaceful coexistence between the States and in open collaboration with the extremist factors of Venezuelan anti-politics, servile to the orders of Washington.

The Government of Venezuela and PDVSA were excluded from the judicial sale of CITGO and were prevented from defending their right before US courts. To do this, the US authorities had the complicity of the organized crime group calling itself the “National Assembly of 2015”, led by Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López, Julio Borges, and the surname caste of Venezuelan neofascism, who, since 2019, have attempted to usurp the institutions and representation of the Republic and its entities abroad.

The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reiterates that it does not and will not recognize the forced sale of CITGO, carried out in flagrant disregard of the economic guarantees, due process, and the right to defense guaranteed by any civilized nation.

Likewise, it confirms that it will continue to implement all the measures at its disposal to prevent the consolidation of the definitive dispossession of CITGO while reserving the exercise of actions against any company or individual that acquires the shares, facilitates the purchase or negotiates with the assets of CITGO, as well as against those responsible for the dispossession of this asset of great importance for the present and future of Venezuelans.

The Venezuelan people will know how to respond, in great national unity, to reject this brazen theft by the government of the United States of America together with the criminals of Venezuelan extremism.

Venezuela will always win!

Caracas, June 17, 2024

CITGO 6 looking for more money

In the last week of May, US media reported that one of the recently released CITGO 6 former executives, sentenced for corruption by the Venezuelan judiciary and released after a political negotiation with the US government as part of the Barbados Agreement, sued CITGO for US$100 million alleging it conspired in his detention and then abandoned him and his family.

Tomeu Vadell is the executive who worked for CITGO when they were summoned to Venezuela in 2017 to attend a meeting at the headquarters of the company’s parent, the Venezuelan-run oil giant PDVSA. Once there, they were detained in a conference room by masked security agents and then were charged with corruption and embezzlement charges.

A Venezuelan judge later convicted the six executives of embezzlement and sentenced them to between eight years and 13 years in prison, with the clear evidence provided by the Attorney General’s Office.

For many analysts, this new maneuver by Venezuela’s far-right resembles the same piracy operation launched by the United Kingdom to steal more than US$2 billion seized by the Bank of England, plagued with multi-million dollar legal expenses aiming at depleting the entire value of the seized gold.