Tarek William Saab, Attorney General of the Republic, announced this Wednesday arrest warrants for at least three members of the team of the presidential candidate María Corina Machado, for the president of the Súmate organization, and another group of political actors who are outside the country.
In Press conference At the headquarters of the Public Ministry in Caracas, Saab indicated that the arrests are part of an investigation into an alleged national and international conspiracy aimed at boycotting the consultative referendum for Essequibo, which took place on Sunday, December 3.
“Guyana, ExxonMobil and the United States in the shadows work as a team to strip Venezuela of a territory that historically and legally belongs to Venezuela,” he assured.
Saab said that after investigation proceedings, a series of financing was identified from the money laundering of international organizations and foreign companies such as ExxonMobil “to conspire against the development of the consultative referendum for Guayana Esequiba.”
He noted that the financing is monetized through crypto assets by Damián Merlo, an American, former telecommunications businessman and former foreign policy advisor linked to Donald Trump and advisor to Nayib Bukele.
Merlo had as a contact Savoi Jandon Wright, another American, who is already detained, who “used the USDT cryptocurrency and large sums of cash to evade financial controls and mask the origin and destination of the funds used to conspire.”
According to Saab, this second American citizen maintained economic relations with Claudia Macero, Pedro Urruchurtu and Roberto Abdul, leaders of the Súmate organization.
«Who, together with Henry Alviarez, directed destabilizing and conspiratorial actions, previously sponsored by a group of subjects who are abroad: Yon Goicoechea, Juan Guaidó, Julio Borges, Andrés Izarra, David Smolansky, Lester Toledo, Carlos Vecchio, Leopoldo López and Rafael Ramírez,” he added.
Given these alleged findings, the Public Ministry requested arrest warrants against the aforementioned opposition leaders, most of them militants of the Voluntad Popular party who are in exile.
Arrest warrants were also requested against three members of María Corina Machado’s team: Henry Alviarez, national organizational coordinator of Vente Venezuela; the political scientist Pedro Urruchurtu, coordinator of International Relations of the Machado campaign and of International Affairs of Vente Venezuela, and Claudia Mancero, communications coordinator of the candidate.
An arrest warrant was also requested against the president of Súmate, Roberto Abdul, who had already been investigated for his participation in the organization of the October 22 primaries.
All of them will be charged with the crimes of treason, conspiracy, money laundering and criminal association, according to Saab.