Accused of looting Venezuelan oil company bought a villa in Cap Cana

Zabala spent more than four million euros on jewelry, hotels and works of art and acquired the villa in the Dominican Republic

Taken from Diario Libre

José Luis Zabala, who is being prosecuted for the looting of one of Latin America's main public energy companies, Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), allegedly acquired a villa in an exclusive urbanization in the Dominican Republic.

According to the Spanish, credit card charges and transfers confirm that between 2008 and 2012, when the oil company's theft was planned, Zabala spent more than four million euros on jewelry, hotels and works of art, and also acquired the villa in the Dominican Republic.

Zabala is being accused of spending more than four million on luxury goods during the years of the fraud against the public energy company.

The report indicates that documents obtained by the international media outlet show that the insurance broker made a €602,000 down payment in January 2011 to acquire a luxurious 915-square-meter villa valued at €1.7 million in the exclusive Cap Cana resort in Higüey. It also states that Zabala spent €33,645 in 2014 on various repairs to improve the garden of this property, known as Villa Marina Cap Cana .

The businessman, who did not work at PDVSA, is being prosecuted in Andorra for his connection with one of the members of the scheme that plundered the public company, the Venezuelan insurance magnate Omar Farías.

In 2018, an Andorran court indicted some 30 people for the plundering of PDVSA , including Zabala, Farías , and former Venezuelan Deputy Energy Ministers Nervis Villalobos and Javier Alvarado. All have been accused since then of money laundering and accepting bribes for allegedly soliciting illegal commissions from companies, especially Chinese ones, which were subsequently awarded lucrative contracts by the Venezuelan state oil company.

The network operated between 2007 and 2012 and used a complex web of some thirty companies based in tax havens like Belize or countries protected by banking secrecy laws, such as Switzerland and Andorra, to launder its ill-gotten gains. The money allegedly tainted by corruption at the oil company ended up in the accounts of BPA, an institution seized in 2015 for its alleged involvement in laundering funds for international criminal groups.