Our pal Setty has a thoroughly researched, hugely important story on a little footnote in the PDVSA financials. It turns out that, long ago, PDVSA seized some ships from one of its partners, and yadda yadda yadda, Venezuelans lost $644 million.
In minute detail, Setty goes through the job of untangling this particular ball of yarn. The bottom line is that reckless government decisions to sieze private property resulted in huge losses for Venezuelan taxpayers. Rafael Ramírez should be fired for malpractice such as this, but as it happens, he just accumulates more power by the day. Such is chavista Venezuela.
This story deserves more coverage, so go and read it now.
Caracas Chronicles 
How many “events” like this one might happened the past 5 years? Who got a little “pal Café” on this transactions? We are talking about $644 millions, que bolas…
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One million USd is a theft, 644 millions an statistic…..
Paraphrasing Stalin.
these thugs KNOW that kind of money buys them freedom for life, in an gold exile somewhere.
It might not but them peace of mind one hopes though.
It is time Venezuelan recovery plans include a section for a extraterritorial and perhaps extra judicial apparatus to seek such people and bring them back to justice. Israel style.
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I’m sure we will end up hunting these criminals in “Munich-like” operations across the world. At least I’m hoping so….
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You watch too many movies.
Think Congo-Zaire and Mobutu time. That’s the way it goes (although I have to say the western part of Congo is now rather safe compared to Venezuela)
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touche!
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Patria socialismo o muerte comes with a large legal bill, no doubt. You have to pay twice, once for the good advice, and twice for the privilege of ignoring it.
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Great work by Setty. I don’t know if they will ever collect on that judgement, though. They may have to stand in a long line.
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Roy, that’s quite right. It will be interesting to see what Oaktree and Kaplan do next. Under some convention (Hague? New York? I’m not a lawyer) they can sue to seize PDVSA assets to enforce the judgment. At that point, whoever held the D&O insurance for Superior Deepwater can probably start checking statutes of limitations too.
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Unfortunately, at the end of the day, you can’t foreclose on a sovereign nation. But, maybe it SHOULD be possible. Imagine Venezuela (the entire country) in receivership…
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Don’t be so sure about that. In the future China may deploy gunboats off the coast and force Venezuela to pay up!
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That’s funny, inasmuch as a dictatorship by bankers can be funny.
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I don’t see how they could do worse…
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I just hope you’re not serious
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No, not really… Bad precedent. But, in this case, I liked the image.
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Pretty sure that there are many other stories like the one uncovered by Setty or worse , for amounts which probably are very very substantial and which may be scaping public notice simply because everything unsavory that happens inside Pdvsa is kept under wraps . Doesnt mean that everyone inside is crook , just that there are plenty of crooks and either they are so powerful that they cannot be denounced or the system is so disorganized that nothing can be pinned on anyone for certain . There is stuff that some of the inside comptrollers know about but cannot denounce or act upon either because there are higher ups which prevent it or because there is such great fear of the bad political publiclty which would come from it..
Some day ( its my hope) the dozen of cases now kept hidden will be made public and people will know a tale of rampant corruption as Venezuela never experienced before in its whole history . Congrats to Setty for uncovering this case. He is one great investigative journalist !!.
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DIOSSSSSSS….. HELP US!!
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Just a curious coincident, CITGO is working on a bond deal totaling USD 650 million. Pdvsa got smacked for USD 644 million.. Hmmmm…
http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/140716/citgo-works-on-new-sale-of-bonds-amounting-to-usd-650-million
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The difference, $6 Million, is for “administrative expenses” I’ll bet……………………………………….
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The press note specifies that of the 650M$ about 350M$ will be used to refinance ( roll over) existing Citgo debt and 300M$ to fund the payment of Citgo Dividends to Pdvsa .
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