The US National Security Investigations Agency (HSI) seized 81 luxury vehicles in Florida on Wednesday, valued at about $ 3.2 million, that were to be sent to Venezuela in violation of Washington’s sanctions against Caracas.
According to the HSI agents told the ‘Miami Herald’, the cars were to be sent to Venezuela by a smuggling network led by the Venezuelan businessman Raúl GorrÃn, accused of money laundering in a Miami court.
“This is a drop in the ocean,” HSI Special Agent Anthony Salisbury told the US newspaper, indicating that it is still unknown how many cars would have been sent to Venezuela through this network, which the United States began investigating in the spring as a result of a breath from Colombia.
“These cars were for kleptocrats like GorrÃn and his associates to live their millionaire lives while the people of Venezuela are starving,” said Salisbury.
The agent explained that these cars would also serve to launder money. “The amount of money that the Venezuelan kleptocrats are laundering is astonishing. The drug traffickers launder hundreds of millions of dollars, the Venezuelan kleptocrats launder billions of dollars,” he said.
The self-proclaimed “president in charge” of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, has celebrated the US operation. “This is the portrait of a declining regime: they protect their privileges, they buy luxury vehicles and not respirators,” he criticized on Twitter.
In addition, it has served to justify the litigation in the United Kingdom to control the gold of the Central Bank of Venezuela deposited in the Bank of England, which has been resolved in his favor. “This is why we protected the gold from the regime’s clutches, so that they don’t continue stealing Venezuelans’ money,” he said.
