This is José Levy, linked to Kirchnerism. Judge Aguinsky considered that the payments through shell companies or tax havens were to launder overprices.
The economic criminal judge Marcelo Aguinsky prosecuted Juan José Levy againone of the businessmen who benefited from the diesel oil trust created between Kirchnerism and Chavismo, among others, but not due to fraud against the Venezuelan state, but of course money laundering.
The judge suspects part of payments for 280 million dollars that Levy received from the Venezuelan government and that they were redistributed in companies and accounts in the United States and other countries.
Many of them were formed by the Mossack & Fonseca law firm, which became infamous for the Panama Papers case.
In these years, Levy denied on several occasions having committed any crime and said that they were only legal businesses with Venezuela.
Under the judicial magnifying glass are Laboratorios ESME and Bleu Tel, among other companies, which sold at an “extra prices” Argentine cleaning and personal hygiene products and Chinese-made televisions and decoders.
In addition, the judge was struck by the fact that these firms received “50 or 60 percent” of financial advances before shipping the goods. The case is similar, said the judge, “to the syndrome of the tangled chain” through which when trying to order it, more knots are generated.
As Venezuela in three years did not answer a single request for judicial cooperation, the judge could not prove that there was fraud against that government. That is why he focused on money laundering.
Purchases were made by Suministros Venezolanos Industriales CA (SUVINCA), directed by Eddie Bentancourt Romero, and the Venezuelan Store Chain (CATIVEN). Always through the trust constituted with payments from Argentina for diesel oil from the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA.
In a ruling of more than 500 pages, they counted Clarion judicial sources, the judge and the public prosecutor Pablo Turando confirmed diversion of payments to more than 60 real companies and other apocryphal ones incorporated in Panama or tax havens. One of the firms that received the money abroad was FROLEM Corporation, another was Dockland Properties, Kingyard Assets, Bliss Whwll or Quintell Technologies. A couple of them had as directors homeless people living in Villa 31 de Retiro.
The “excessive prices”, at the discretion of the judge, were applied to the products, freight and insurance of the operation.
On the other hand, the judge pointed out that the Chinese company Chain Wan Digital Limited, which produced the decoders, it belonged to Levy himself. “The maneuver would have been made more complex by means ofand an interweaving of transfers between accounts of the presumed suppliers”, said the magistrate.
Later, the judge pointed out that Laboratorios ESME “would have introduced significant sums of money first as an advance and then export cancellation paid by the firm SUVINCA that they would not have been destined to make the considerations to the agreed extent.”
Aguinsky warned that “if inflated prices are included in a rare inverse price scalability symmetry, the excess amount entails the design of causing damage to the interests of Venezuela, which would imply an illegal activity”. That is, for more products sold, instead of lowering the price, they raised it.
Background
Aguinsky had prosecuted Levy for the first time in 2017, but the Economic Criminal Chamber revoked the prosecution and ordered this case to be redirected. Is about one of those that investigates the business between Kirchnerism and Chavismo. Another is the federal judge Julián Ercolini.
Levy has close relationships with the former head of De Vido’s Ceremonial and former spy for the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI), José María Olazagasti. He was one of the businessmen who participated in Cristina’s trips to Venezuela within the framework of the strategic cooperation agreements between the two countries and the Argentine-Venezuelan trust that manages the PDVSA oil company.
The former Minister of Federal Planning denied knowing Levy, despite agreeing on three trips between 2012 and 2013 on the same flight to Caracas. And his right hand, Olazagasti, coincided in ten.
The data is included in a report from the Financial Information Unit (FIU), the Justice was asked to send requests for cooperation to Panama, the US and the Seychelles islands for the verification of suspicious financial operations of Levy for a millionaire amount in dollars.
