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The Citgo conspiracy: Opposition figures accuse Guaidó officials of ‘scam’ to liquidate Venezuela’s most prized international asset

Venezuela’s opposition has long accused the Bolivarian government of corruption and mismanagement. But with Citgo on the verge of liquidation, Guaidó’s officials are too incompetent — or too devious — to save it.

by Anya Parampil

Part 2 - The Crystallex hustle

Citgo’s survival fell into limbo on July 29, when a US Federal Appeals Court upheld a ruling declaring that Crystallex, a Canadian gold mining firm, could seize $1.4 billion worth of the refinery’s shares. The sum was considered compensation for assets expropriated by Venezuela’s government under the late President Hugo Chávez.

The Crystallex ruling caused anxiety among PDVSA’s Guaidó-appointed board, which immediately pledged it would take “all legal measures necessary to challenge the decision.

Guaidó’s US-based attorney general, José Ignacio Hernández, responded to the ruling on July 31, tweeting: “no creditor can judicially execute on PDVSA properties, including Citgo.

Yet Hernández’s interest in the Crystallex case did not begin when he assumed the role of Guaidó’s overseas legal representative in February. According to court documents, he appeared in 2017 as an expert witness in the case, testifying on behalf of Crystallex.

In other words, Hernández had aided Crystallex’s legal case against the government he now claimed to represent.

Hernández neglected to inform Venezuela’s National Assembly of this relationship before it hastily approved his nomination and made him the country’s most powerful legal representative in the eyes of the US court system.

To me, Mr. Hernández’s acts are unexplainable,” Jorge Alejandro Rodríguez, the financial expert, told The Grayzone

Despite his vehement opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Rodríguez could not overlook Hernández’s deceit. On June 5, he met with lawmakers in Venezuela’s National Assembly to inform them of Hernández’s ties to Crystallex.

I am 110 percent against Maduro and against Chávez,” he insisted, adding that “my intention was not to make a scandal out of this, but to make a warning as private as possible.

Rodríguez told The Grayzone he made a “strong recommendation” that lawmakers remove Hernández from his powerful position, and cautioned them that Guaidó’s US-based representatives were poised to squander Citgo entirely.

He claims that while serving as Guaidó’s top prosecutor, Hernández made several decisions which ultimately enabled, if not entirely ensured, Crystallex’s victory against the government he supposedly worked for.

I told the lawmakers: ‘I don’t give this [case] more than a couple of months,’” Rodríguez said, describing his June 5th meeting. “It’s not like I had a crystal ball or anything, but once you see the case and the things that Hernández did, or allowed the National Assembly to do, you can see that it was of such a benefit to Crystallex, that for the judges it became a clear case.

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