{"id":50708,"date":"2022-08-28T11:46:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T18:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=50708"},"modified":"2022-08-28T11:46:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T18:46:02","slug":"venezuelan-businessman-charged-with-alleged-bribery-and-money-laundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=50708","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelan Businessman Charged with Alleged Bribery and Money Laundering"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment last week charging a Venezuelan national with allegedly paying bribes to get multimillion-dollar contracts from Petropiar, federal officials stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Petropiar is a joint venture between Venezuela\u2019s state-owned and state-controlled energy company and an American oil company.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rixon Rafael Moreno Oropeza was charged with allegedly <\/span>laundering the proceeds of substantially inflated procurement contracts obtained by making bribe payments to senior officials, officials stated. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moreno Oropeza is presumed innocent unless proven guilty<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"According to the indictment, from at least 2015 through at least May 2019, Oropeza, 46, allegedly engaged in a scheme to obtain multimillion-dollar contracts from Petropiar by paying bribes to senior officials at Petropiar. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moreno allegedly agreed to pay a $1 million bribe to a senior official in the Venezuelan government to install another person as a high-ranking official in the procurement division of Petropiar. <\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, Moreno allegedly sent millions of dollars in bribe payments to senior Petropiar officials from accounts he controlled in South Florida. <\/span><\/p>\n

In exchange for these bribe payments, Moreno allegedly received benefits, including over $30 million in payments on contracts from Petropiar to accounts Moreno controlled in South Florida. <\/span><\/p>\n

Illustrative of this, Moreno received approximately $2.7 million from a Petropiar contract to supply breathing devices, a contract whose price had been allegedly inflated to 100 times the actual cost. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moreno allegedly used the proceeds obtained from the Petropiar contracts for his own personal benefit, including to purchase real estate, a private jet, and luxury vehicles in South Florida.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Moreno is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering; concealment money laundering; international promotional money laundering; and engaging in transactions involving criminally derived property. <\/span><\/p>\n

If convicted, officials stated that Moreno faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering and up to 10 years in prison for each count of engaging in transactions in the criminally derived property. <\/span><\/p>\n

HSI’s Miami Field Office and IRS-CI Miami Field Office investigated this case.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trial Attorney Alexander Kramer of the Justice Department\u2019s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Berger of the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the case. <\/span><\/p>\n

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Klco of the Southern District of Florida handles asset forfeiture.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment last week charging a Venezuelan national with allegedly paying bribes to get multimillion-dollar contracts from Petropiar, federal officials stated. Petropiar is a joint…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-department-of-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nVenezuelan Businessman Charged with Alleged Bribery and Money Laundering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment last week charging a Venezuelan national with allegedly paying bribes to get multimillion-dollar\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=50708\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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