23 August 2018

Matthias Krull / Francisco Convit case dwarfed by Charles Henry de Beaumont's


There’s quite a lot of chatter in law enforcement / judicial circles about Matthias Krull, Francisco Convit & un-named conspirators. PDVSA is, as usual, the centre of everything. Krull, who has already pleaded guilty, knows things about Raul Gorrin’s (Conspirator 7) “other businesses”. But that’s not all. Let us recall that PDVSA was hit with an identical -but substantially larger ($4 billion)- scheme, set up by Conspirator 2 in Krull’s case (partner of Convit, Alejandro Betancourt) with Rafael Ramirez, Luis Oberto and brother Ignacio.

The DoJ is sitting on a mountain of evidence from Charles Henry de Beaumont, a Krull-style “banker” tasked by various Venezuelan “entrepreneurs” to launder billions of dollars. As in the Krull / Convit case, Swiss banks were used (Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique, EFG), as well as Austria’s Meinl bank. Betancourt is refusing to provide comments on the record on involvement, due to his alleged ongoing collaboration with DoJ.

Sources report also that the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has started subpoenaing people associated to PDVSA Litigation Trust. That will open another can of worms, for both defendants and plaintiff are nothing but enablers of vast corruption. Allegedly, DoJ officials visited Switzerland recently, with the purpose of getting all the information related to PDVSA’s criminal complaint, filed by Gueric Canonica (Wilmer Ruperti’s lawyer) with former-colleague-cum-prosecutor Johan Droz. Ruperti is also having trouble answering requests for comments owing to medical issues.

That DoJ has taken on the case is a blessing, really. Maybe Conoco’s action against David Boies & co had something to do with it.