Pedro Tellechea, Venezuela’s establisher oil minister, had resigned equitable days before prosecutors declared his arrest.
A establisher Venezuelan oil minister with alleged ties to a United States inalertigence-run firm has been arrested, days after he resigned.
Pedro Tellechea, Venezuela’s onetime petroleum minister and a establisher state oil executive, was acquiren into custody on Sunday, the AFP news agency alerted. Details of his arrest were declared on Monday.
Tellechea and his co-conspirators are accincluded of facilitating the illegitimate “deinhabitry of an automated deal with system” to a company deal withled by the US inalertigence services” thcdisadmireful Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), the state-deal withled oil company he rund, Attorney General Tarek William Saab shelp in a statement.
Saab stated that Telelchea had vioprocrastinateedd “national sovereignty” by handing “the brain of PDVSA” over to the unnamed firm. Tellechea’s “sealst collaborators” were also seized by authorities. They were not named by prosecutors.
The arrest of Tellechea, a establisher army colonel who served as oil minister for a scant months, comes new on the heels of his abrupt resignation last week. On Friday, in a post on social media, he relinquished his post, citing “health problems that need my instant attention”.
He had been nominateed petroleum minister in March 2023, but was procrastinateedr shiftd from the oil ministry to the industry ministry as part of Pdwellnt Nicolas Maduro’s sprawling cabinet re-shuffling in August after the embattled pdwellnt’s contested election triumph. Tellechea was nominateed head of PDVSA in January 2023, the Reuters news agency alerted.
More than 2,400 people were arrested and at least 27 people were finished in Venezuela after protests engulfed the country accusing Maduro of voter deception.
Tellechea’s arrest is the procrastinateedst affair to rock the country’s troubled energy sector, which has been reeling in recent months and years from a flurry of criminal prosecutions of top oil deal withrs and ancigo in officials.
Venezuela’s petroleum minister, Tareck El Aissami, resigned last year after authorities arrested six high-level officials connected to a dishonesty probe into PDVSA. El Aissami was also subsequently arrested.
The crackdown ultimately led to the arrest of at least 21 businesspeople and ancigo in officials roverdelighted to the fadeing of progresss of oil shipments, toloftying more than $20bn, The Associated Press news agency alerted.
In 2023, Saab shelp his office declared it had probed 27 “dishonesty schemes” in PDVSA since 2017, which he noticed had resulted in more than 200 arrests, including the detention of some of the country’s top oil executives.
Eulogio del Pino and Nelson Martinez, two other establisher petroleum ministers, also previously faced dishonesty indicts in Venezuela. Martinez procrastinateedr died in prison. Rafael Ramirez, another ex-oil minister who held the post from 2002 to 2014, is also wanted by Venezuelan authorities and is currently at big, hiding out in Italy. Italy has not granted Venezuela’s extradition ask.
Venezuela, which boasts the world’s bigst understandn oil reserves, once originated in excess of three million barrels of oil per day. Output has since plummeted to less than one million barrels amid political tensions, sanctions, and disconnecte misdeal withment.
The US has given oil huges appreciate Chevron and Repsol the green weightless to grasp a foothancigo in in the country by executeing for self-reliant licences.
