2 South Florida Home Purchases Linked to Venezuelan Bribery Scheme
The federal government wants to seize the real estate after the owners pleaded guilty to involvement in the scheme and admitted using illegally obtained funds to buy the homes.
July 02, 2019 at 05:51 PM
4 minute read
Funds from a bribery scheme involving Venezuela's state-run electric company Corpoelec were used to purchase a high-end condominium in Miami's Brickell district and a three-story Doral home, which federal authorities intend to seize.
Venezuela's former electricity minister Luis Motta Dominguez and the utility's former procurement director, Eustiquio Lugo Gomez, have been added to the wide-ranging public corruption probe.
The indictment charged them with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and seven counts of money laundering.
The opulent South Florida properties didn't belong to Motta, a former Venezuelan army general, and Lugo but to associates: Luis Alberto Chacin Haddad, owner of equipment supply companies in Miami, and a well-connected acquaintance, Jesus Ramon Veroes.
Chacin owns the 2,600-square-foot, three-bedroom, four-bathroom condo unit on the 10th floor of the Bristol Tower, according to court filings and Miami-Dade County property records. Veroes owns the 4,579-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bathroom house in the 3400 block of Northwest 84th Avenue in Doral.
Federal prosecutors allege Chacin bought and owned his property using Brickell Miami 1001 LLC and Veroes used Oasis 3420 LLC.
Brickell Miami 1001, whose title managers are Chacin and Maria A. Haddad, bought the Bristol condo in September 2017 for $1.45 million. Oasis 3420, which lists Maria Fernanda Veroes as title manager, bought the Doral home in June 2017 for $1 million, according to state corporate and county real estate records.
Chacin and Veroes pleaded guilty June 24 to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act under plea agreements requiring their cooperation.
Chacin and Veroes' attorney, Genovese Joblove & Battista's Theresa Van Vliet in Fort Lauderdale, declined to comment. Another attorney for Veroes, Carlos Perez-Irizarry in Orlando, also declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga in Miami set sentencing for Sept. 4. Chacin and Veroes have agreed to each forfeit $5.5 million obtained through the bribery scandal.
The allegations outlined in the indictment, plea agreements and factual proffers detail an agreement between Motta, Lugo, Chacin and Veroes. It allowed Chacin with Veroes' help to illegally scoop up contracts to supply generators, forklifts, transformers and other equipment to Corpoelec. Then Chacin, in exchange for being awarded the work, sent kickbacks to Motta and Lugo by transferring funds to bank accounts, including some in Spain, and to third parties to hide connections to Motta and Lugo.
For the scheme to work, Chacin inflated his bids to cover profits for him and Veroes and kickbacks to Motta and Lugo.
Chacin and another conspirator, who wasn't named in court filings, first bid for contracts to supply equipment to Corpoelec in 2015 or shortly after. Even though their proposals were for below-market prices, they didn't get the job, according to Chacin and Veroes' proffers.
In 2016 when Chacin was in Venezuela, he told Veroes of his failure to get the Corpoelec contracts. Veroes said he had a long-standing relationship with a Venezuelan government official and would talk to him. Veroes' proffer said he attended a meeting where a second Venezuelan government official was called in and the three came to an agreement on the scheme.
Veroes worked as a conduit between Chacin and the two Venezuelan government officials, Motta and Lugo, according to the proffers.
Among the bogus contracts was a $6.4 million forklift deal for Chacin's Search Trading LLC, a $9.8 million deal for transformers and a $893,714 contract for generators.
Overall, Motta and Lugo were accused of awarding more than $60 million in Corpoelec contracts in exchange for kickbacks.
This isn't the first time high-end Miami real estate was linked to alleged fraud involving the Venezuelan government.
Federal authorities last summer charged a $1.2 billion currency fraud and embezzlement scheme involving Venezuela's state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. Prosecutors charged that some of the money was laundered through a unit in the glitzy Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach that's famous for its Dezervator car elevator.
As the investigation unfolded, federal authorities moved to seize two estates in Coral Gables' affluent Cocoplum neighborhood and a mansion in Miami's Bay Point neighborhood. The links between these properties and the embezzlement were not explicit in the charging documents.
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