38 PDVSA employees detained in Venezuela


03/09/2020

The Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol announced on Saturday about new detentions among employees and management of the state oil and gas corporation PDVSA, including 38 detained crew of the tanker Negra Hipolita, president of PDV Marina and his assistant, as well as 6 managers.



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“As part of an inter-agency investigation carried by the prosecutor general’s office, 8 people were detained in addition to 30 tanker crew members,” Reverol said on the air of Iguana news channel.

The Minister said that employees of the Main Directorate of Military Counterintelligence discovered the theft of hydrocarbons using the tanker Negra Hipolita, which exported 40 thousand barrels of gasoline, 36 thousand barrels of diesel fuel and 50 thousand barrels of aviation kerosene from the Paraguan refinery in Falcon. The ship was redirected to the sea border between the waters of Venezuela and the Netherlands Antilles, where fuel was loaded onto the Panamanian Glory tanker under the flag of Colombia.

Navy forces detained and escorted the tanker Negra Hipolita to the base of San Augustin Armario in Puerto Cabello, where they searched it and arrested the crew.

On February 20, amid tougher sanctions by the US Treasury against trading counterparties of the Venezuelan oil company, President Nicolas Maduro declared a state of emergency and started reforming the industry. 

Venezuelan intelligence officials arrested two PDVSA supply and trade managers on February 28. According to the presidential commission for the reorganization of the oil industry, the managers passed sensitive strategic information to the US government, which thus got the opportunity to harm the Venezuelan oil industry.

source: reuters.com