An official from the first administration of American President Donald Trump (2017-2021) said that “corrupt and dirty” money from Venezuela was directed to left-wing campaigns in other Latin American countries, including Brazil.
Marshall Billingslea, former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing at the United States Department of the Treasury, made the accusation at a hearing of the US Senate on international narcotics control, held on Tuesday (21).
“The regime that fomented the socialist plague that spread throughout Latin America is the Venezuelan one. It is the corrupt and dirty money of Venezuela that financed the campaign of [presidente da Colômbia, Gustavo] Petro. They funneled money to Mexico. They funneled money to Brazil,” Billingslea said.
“As soon as democracy is restored in Venezuela, all this subversion money to finance socialist campaigns in the region will dry up. The same happens with the oil revenues for the Cuban regime, all the support for the Nicaraguans. We forget what [o ditador da Nicarágua, Daniel] Ortega is doing to the Nicaraguan people. It’s a scam. Therefore, the solution begins with the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, in my understanding,” said the former secretary.
Last week, the Spanish website The Objective reported that former Venezuelan general Hugo Armando Carvajal, known as “Pollo” Carvajal, who was head of Venezuelan military intelligence during the Hugo Chávez regime (1999-2013), is collaborating with the United States authorities and must deliver unprecedented documentation on the international financing networks of Chavismo, which allegedly benefited movements and left-wing leaders in Latin America and Spain.
In 2021, according to the website Ok Diario, Carvajal informed the Spanish Court in a letter that the regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro made illegal payments to left-wing parties and politicians in the European country and in Latin America, and that among the beneficiaries would be the current presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), and of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and the former presidents of Argentina Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and of Bolivia Evo Morales (2006-2019).
At the time, Lula’s advisors denied that he had received money from Venezuela. “Former president Lula had all his confidentiality broken and analyzed over the years and no irregularities or illegal amounts were found in his accounts”, he pointed out. Others mentioned also denied any irregularities.
