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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://orinocotribune.com/revealed-juan-guaido-used-millions-of-looted-dollars-to-asset-strip-venezuela/">orinocotribune.com</a>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Revealed: Juan Guaidó Used Millions of Looted Dollars to Asset Strip Venezuela</h1>By John McEvoy – Aug 20, 2021
</div><div class="gmail-content"><div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>On 3 August, <em>The Canary</em> <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/investigations/2021/08/03/exclusive-juan-guaido-paid-uk-legal-fees-with-looted-venezuelan-money/">exposed</a> how Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaidó’s UK legal costs were paid with money appropriated from the Venezuelan state.</p>
<p>In an effort to access roughly US$2bn of Venezuelan gold held in the Bank of England, it was <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/investigations/2021/08/03/exclusive-juan-guaido-paid-uk-legal-fees-with-looted-venezuelan-money/">reported</a> that
Guaidó’s legal team drew on hundreds of thousands of dollars originally
seized from the Central Bank of Venezuela in the US.</p>
<p>We can now reveal that this figure is significantly higher. According to official documents, Guaidó and his <a href="https://www.4pumpcourt.com/judgment/the-maduro-board-of-the-central-bank-of-venezuela-v-the-guaido-board-of-the-central-bank-of-venezuela/">appointees</a> have given over US$6.5m to powerhouse legal firms as part of a campaign to bleed the Venezuelan state of its foreign assets.</p>
<p>Almost all of this money was sent in a series of instalments to Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP – the legal firm <a href="https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/news/2020/07/venezuela-in-dispute-over-access-to-reserves">representing</a> Guaidó in the UK.</p>
<p>Remarkably, the documents also suggest that Guaidó has been paid over half a million dollars from this fund.</p>
<p><strong>Looted dollars</strong><br>
In April 2020, the US government <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14850">transferred</a> US$342m
of Central Bank of Venezuela assets to an account at the US Federal
Reserve in New York. In a move denounced by the Venezuelan government as
“vulgar plundering”, the money was then <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/investigations/2021/08/03/exclusive-juan-guaido-paid-uk-legal-fees-with-looted-venezuelan-money/">handed</a> over to Guaidó’s ad-hoc administrative board of the Central Bank of Venezuela.</p>
<p>Official figures released by Guaidó’s ad-hoc board <a href="https://www.bcvadhoc.com/uso-de-los-fondos">show</a> that
at least US$6,552,512 of these funds have been used “for professional
services of lawyers in the care of Assets abroad to be protected and
licensing procedures before OFAC”.</p>
<p>Guaidó and his appointees have, in other words, spent millions of
looted dollars in an attempt to asset strip the Venezuelan state.</p>
<p>Most of this money was paid to Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP – the legal firm representing Guaidó in the UK.</p>
<p><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/funds-have-not-been-released-bank-of-england-has-frozen-venezuelan-money-for-vaccines-venezuelan-gold/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT: Funds Have Not Been Released: ‘Bank of England Has Frozen Venezuelan Money for Vaccines’ (Venezuelan Gold)</a></p>
<p>Guaidó and his appointees have also <a href="https://www.bcvadhoc.com/uso-de-los-fondos">directed</a> roughly US$100m of looted assets towards a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/latin-america-virus-outbreak-caribbean-ap-top-news-venezuela-bd68454e33c7cf5a57fe7bdfa32fe5a7">secretive</a>“Liberation Fund”. According to <em>AP</em>, opposition lawmakers <a href="https://apnews.com/article/latin-america-virus-outbreak-caribbean-ap-top-news-venezuela-bd68454e33c7cf5a57fe7bdfa32fe5a7">used</a> the
fund during 2020 to “pay themselves $5,000 a month” while providing
only $100 a month to doctors and nurses battling the coronavirus
(Covid-19) pandemic.</p>
<p>Remarkably, the documents suggest that Guaidó and his appointees have
in fact paid Guaidó over half a million dollars since March 2021. The
most recent instalment to the ‘Presidency’ was delivered on 19 July
2021, and totalled US$407,702.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/235295473_1020973835381006_4823142504845503249_n.png" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="0" height="0"></p>
<p><strong>Lobbying for Guaidó</strong><br>
A number of questions also arise regarding Guaidó’s legal representation
in the UK and its connections to the US foreign policy apparatus.</p>
<p>Eli Whitney Debevoise II, a senior partner at Arnold & Porter who <a href="https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/news/2021/07/arnold-porter-advises-central-bank-of-venezuela">leads</a> on Guaidó’s UK case, has been listed on the US Foreign Agents Registration Act as a <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/02/venezuela-opposition-leader-juan-guaido-recruits-dc-lobbyists">lobbyist</a> for the Venezuelan opposition.</p>
<p>According to an official <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/1750-Short-Form-20190923-54.pdf">document</a>,
Debevoise has advised Guaidó “concerning U.S. economic sanctions,
corporate banking law, U.S. litigation, and international arbitration”.</p>
<p><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelan-gold-seized-by-the-bank-of-england-british-court-accepts-guaidos-appeal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT: Venezuelan Gold Seized by the Bank of England: British Court Accepts Guaidó’s Appeal</a></p>
<p>The document <a href="https://efile.fara.gov/docs/1750-Short-Form-20190923-54.pdf">continues</a>:</p>
<p>In support of the primary registrant [Guaidó], the short-form
registrant may engage in political activities on behalf of the foreign
principal, including making contact with U.S. government officials
concerning the preservation of Venezuela’s assets in the United States,
the establishment of a diplomatic presence, and economic and
humanitarian assistance.</p>
<p>Guaidó may have paid for Arnold & Porter’s legal services, in
other words, with money seized in the US as a result of Arnold &
Porter’s lobbying efforts.</p>
<p><strong>Proximity to the US foreign policy apparatus<br>
</strong>Debevoise II seems well-positioned to provide lobbying services in the US.</p>
<p>According to his LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-debevoise-51361914">account</a>, he’s a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which <a href="https://www.cfr.org/membership/individual-membership">provides</a> “in-person
access to world leaders, senior government officials, members of
Congress, and prominent thinkers and practitioners”. <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/topics/elliott-abrams/">Elliot Abrams</a>, Donald Trump’s former <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/03/07/us-envoy-to-venezuela-reveals-how-washington-uses-military-threat-to-keep-them-nervous/">point-man</a> on Venezuela, is a long-time senior fellow and <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2019/02/04/establishment-expert-admits-us-sanctions-on-venezuela-are-designed-to-make-the-economy-scream/">member</a> of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/expert/elliott-abrams">CFR</a>.</p>
<p>Debevoise II also lists the late US official William D. Rogers, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/us/30rogers.html">planned</a> US policy in Latin America throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as a <a href="https://www.chambers-associate.com/the-big-interview/eli-whitney-debevoise-ii-ex-world-bank-exec">mentor</a>. Rogers was a top <a href="http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2007/09/28/william_d_rogers_at_80_a_specialist_on_latin_america_and_aide_to_kissinger/">adviser</a> to Henry Kissinger throughout the mid-1970s; the latter <a href="https://www.henryakissinger.com/remembrances/eulogy-for-william-d-rogers/">described</a> Rogers as “my friend and, in many ways, my conscience”.</p>
<p>Newspaper reports from the 1960s <a href="http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CIA%20Foundations/Item%20033.pdf">note</a> that
Debevoise II’s father Eli Whitney Debevoise was the principal officer
at CIA front organisation the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
As the <em>Washington Post</em>reported in 1967, the ICJ received “$655,000 from known CIA front groups”. Among Arnold & Porter’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/honduras-lobby-us-prosecutors/2021/04/01/5aaac942-9274-11eb-a74e-1f4cf89fd948_story.html">alumni</a> is former CIA general counsel Jeffrey H. Smith.</p>
<p>Arnold & Porter reportedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/honduras-lobby-us-prosecutors/2021/04/01/5aaac942-9274-11eb-a74e-1f4cf89fd948_story.html">launched</a> an “influence campaign” in <a href="https://www.dw.com/es/honduras-contrat%C3%B3-influyente-bufete-de-washington-para-juicio-de-tony-hern%C3%A1ndez/a-57083998">support</a> of disgraced drug trafficker Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.</p>
<p>Guaidó’s legal representation in the UK thus appears to enjoy a close
proximity to both the US foreign policy apparatus and the Latin
American right, and questions regarding conflicts of interest are likely
to arise.</p>
<p>Despite his involvement in a damning series of <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/investigations/2021/08/03/exclusive-juan-guaido-paid-uk-legal-fees-with-looted-venezuelan-money/">scandals</a>, the UK government reemphasised its <a href="https://twitter.com/HMGBecksB/status/1428094437377380355">support</a> for Guaidó on 18 August.</p><div id="gmail-mab-3939025057">
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John McEvoy </span>
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<p>Independent journalist @theCanaryUK, @jacobinmag, @ColombiaReports , & International History Review.</p>
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