Transparencia Venezuela requests the Attorney General’s Office to investigate President Nicolás Maduro for the alleged illegal financing of Chávez’ last electoral campaign

The request is made by the organization on the occasion of the announcement on Thursday of the statement by Mônica Moura -the wife of the renowned Brazilian publicist João Santana and responsible for developing the «Chávez heart of the people» campaign- before the Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office and in which she assured that the now president paid her, in cash, part of the money requested by her and her husband to develop the campaign concept.

In the 16-page document, Moura says that in 2012 Maduro, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, received her with her husband in his office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At that meeting, they would have agreed that Santana would be in charge of developing the campaign in exchange of USD 35 million. A part of the payment -USD 11 million- would have been made in cash and with irregular funds by who, at the time, was the head of Venezuelan diplomacy.

«The collaborator reports that the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolás Maduro demanded that most of the payments related to the re-election campaign be made with undeclared resources, since unofficial payments would be made by Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez,» can be read in the document, in which she says that some USD 15 million were never paid by the Venezuelan authorities.

Moura, in her statement to the Brazilian prosecutor’s office, said that she and Santana traveled to Caracas in the Andrade Gutierrez’ private jet and that sometimes did it accompanied by Brazilian former president Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva’s former ministers, who is also being investigated.

Santana and Moura were arrested in February 2016 when they arrived in Brazil from the Dominican Republic, where they worked for the reelection campaign of President Danilo Medina. After being found guilty of participating in this corrupt plot, they agreed to help the Attorney General’s Office with its investigations of the Carwash Operation (Operação Lava Jato) in exchange for reductions in their prison sentences.

The Carwash Operation is a major investigation initiated by the Brazilian justice system in 2014 that has brought to jail dozens of politicians and businesspersons accused of having paid bribes in exchange for receiving contracts with Petrobras. Among the convicted is the president of the construction company Odebrecht, Marcelo Odebrecht.

Transparencia Venezuela also requests the Attorney General’s Office to inform on the outcome of the actions it announced last January to determine whether Venezuelan officials received bribes from Odebrecht, as the company’s president admitted.