By Canadian Press

Jury finds Hugo Chavez’s ex-nurse guilty of money laundering

Dec 13, 2022 | 2:41 PM

MIAMI (AP) — The former nurse of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been found guilty of money laundering in connection to bribes paid by a billionaire media mogul to green light lucrative currency transactions when she served as the country’s national treasurer.

A jury in south Florida deliberated for just a few hours Tuesday before finding Claudia Diaz and her husband, Adrían Velasquez, guilty of five of the six counts detailed in a 2020 indictment accusing them of taking at least $4.2 million in bribes.

The couple’s jury trial was seen as a critical test of federal prosecutors’ ability to hold accountable so-called Venezuelan kleptocrats for fleecing the oil rich nation.

According to the indictment, the couple received payments from companies controlled by a Venezuelan co-defendant, fugitive media mogul Raul Gorrin, to accounts in Miami allegedly used to pay for the couple’s otherwise unexplained lavish lifestyle.

The government’s case relied heavily on the testimony of one of Diaz’s predecessors as Treasurer, Alejandro Andrade, who took the witness stand to testify that the financial arrangement he struck with Gorrin continued under Diaz.

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Like Diaz, Andrade, a former presidential security officer, leveraged a personal connection with Chavez to rise through the ranks of the army and the Venezuelan state, amassing a huge fortune almost overnight.

In 2021, he was released from prison after serving less than half of a 10-year sentence for his role in a massive scheme to siphon millions from state coffers. As part of his plea agreement, he forfeited more than $260 million in cash and assets, including an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion, luxury vehicles, show-jumping horses and several Rolex and Hublot watches.

The trial took place as normally hostile relations between the U.S. and Venezuelan are starting to ease after the Trump-era policy of “maximum pressure” to remove President Nicolás Maduro has stalled.

Recently the Biden administration loosened crushing oil sanctions against the OPEC nation, allowing U.S. oil company Chevron for the first time in more than three years to resume production to support fledgling negotiations with the opposition.

But ongoing criminal investigations against Venezuelan insiders remain closely watched in south Florida, home to millions of Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans fleeing leftist rule in their homelands.

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Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press