{"id":9025,"date":"2024-10-21T14:17:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T18:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=9025"},"modified":"2024-10-21T14:17:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T18:17:58","slug":"venezuela-arrests-a-former-oil-czar-and-accuses-him-of-working-with-the-us-to-undermine-the-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=9025","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela Arrests a Former Oil Czar and Accuses Him of Working with the Us to Undermine the Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, left, speaks with Pedro Tellechea, the oil minister and president of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, during a May Day event in Caracas, Venezuela, May 1, 2023. (AP Photo\/Ariana Cubillos, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Venezuela\u2019s top prosecutor on Monday announced the arrest of a former oil minister and accused him of working with the U.S. government to undermine the industry that drives the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced on Instagram the detention of Pedro Tellechea, who became Venezuela\u2019s oil czar in January 2023 following the resignation of one of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s closest allies under a cloud of corruption allegations.<\/p>\n

Saab said people in Tellechea\u2019s inner circle were also detained, but he did not name them. He did not mention any specific charges.<\/p>\n

Tellechea\u2019s tenure as head of Venezuela\u2019s most valuable industry ended in August, when Maduro reassigned his duties to the vice president and named him minister of industry and national production. Maduro on Friday replaced him by appointing a close ally who was pardoned by U.S. President Joe Biden<\/a><\/span> last year as part of a prisoner swap.<\/p>\n

As oil minister, Tellechea was responsible for the state-owned crude company Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela, commonly known as PDVSA. Saab accused Tellechea of \u201cthe delivery\u201d of PDVSA\u2019s automated command and control system \u201cto a company controlled by the intelligence services of the U.S., thus violating all legal mechanisms and our national sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saab described the command system as PDVSA\u2019s \u201cbrain.\u201d He did not offer any evidence to support the accusations.<\/p>\n

Tellechea became oil minister following the resignation of Tareck El Aissami, who had helped Maduro and his government devise a structure to evade international economic sanctions. El Aissami left amid corruption investigations<\/a><\/span> that eventually led to his arrest.<\/p>\n

Maduro on Friday appointed Alex Saab as minister of industry and national production. The new Cabinet member returned to Venezuela a free man<\/a><\/span> in December after being in custody since 2020, when authorities in Cape Verde arrested him on a U.S. warrant for money laundering charges. U.S. prosecutors long regarded him as a bag man for Maduro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuela\u2019s top prosecutor on Monday announced the arrest of a former oil minister and accused him of working with the U.S. government to undermine the industry that drives the country\u2019s economy. Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced on Instagram the detention of Pedro Tellechea, who became Venezuela\u2019s oil czar in January 2023 following the resignation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":9026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/499c456\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3725x2480+0+2\/resize\/820x546!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F79%2Fd7%2F2725bb6ef0578707cc815ac40174%2F484c52bed9434bbbbf50ce85500d4793","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9027,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9025\/revisions\/9027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}