Claudia Díaz Guillén was Hugo Chávez’s nurse and later held necessary positions within the financial sector.
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A US court docket in Florida sentenced the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s former nurse, Claudia Patricia Díaz Guillen, and her husband to fifteen years in jail and three years of probation on Wednesday (19/04).
The sentence establishes that the couple should return US$136 million in items and money equal to their participation in a money-laundering scandal that left a gap within the Venezuelan authorities’s coffers.
As well as, every should pay a $75,000 advantageous.
As of December 2022, Diaz Guillen was discovered responsible of two of the three cash laundering expenses towards him in a Florida court docket.
Her husband, Adrián José Velázquez Figueroa, who was head of safety on the presidential palace in Miraflores throughout Chávez’s authorities, was discovered responsible of three expenses towards her.
The prosecution sought a sentence of 23 years and 5 months for him and 19 years and 5 months for him.
From Chavez’s entourage to a US jail
Díaz Guillén was a member of the Honor Guard, the group liable for the safety of Venezuelan presidents, and was a part of a gaggle of docs and nurses who met the late president, who was appointed nationwide treasurer. – in line with the US case – bought wealthy via a cash laundering scheme.
His ruling was the fruits of a judicial course of that got here to gentle in 2018 when the couple had been arrested in Madrid, Spain, the place they lived, on account of an extradition request by Venezuelan authorities who accused them of cash laundering and unlawful enrichment.
Díaz Guillén was Chávez’s nurse and later nationwide treasurer
Caracas’ request was unsuccessful, however in 2022 Spanish authorities green-lit an extradition request filed by america.
In a December 2018 interview with BBC Information Mundo, the BBC’s Spanish-language information service, Díaz Guillén defended his acceptance of those public positions on his personal deserves.
He defined that in parallel along with his army profession, he obtained levels in nursing and regulation from the Central College of Venezuela.
That might have allowed him to affix the staff of docs and nurses who’ve cared for Chavez since 2003, after he joined the Guard in 2001.
Though she insisted her relationship with the then-president was “purely skilled”, she insisted within the interview that “over eight years of working instantly with him in nursing work, a relationship of respect and friendship was developed”.
In 2011, the 12 months Chávez was identified with most cancers, Venezuelan President Díaz Guillen appointed him head of the Nationwide Treasury and government secretary of the Nationwide Growth Fund (Fondon).
He held workplace till March 2013, when he was ousted by Nicolás Maduro.
In response to the US Lawyer, between 2011 and 2013, Díaz Guillén acquired a minimum of US$65 million in bribes from Raul Gorrín, the Venezuelan businessman who owns the Globovisión information channel, who’s at the moment wished by a US court docket.
These sources’ funds are stated to be supposed to permit Corinne to hold out trade operations inside the strict trade management system established by Chávez in Venezuela.
On the time, given the big distinction between the official greenback worth and the unofficial worth, buying forex on the government-set preferential worth and promoting it on the black market was a extremely worthwhile exercise.
Díaz Guillén faces expenses of cash laundering and conspiracy to commit cash laundering. US authorities see her husband as a key associate in these operations, as a portion of the bribes could have been transferred in her identify or via corporations she owns.
Not like many former Hugo Chávez authorities officers who’ve been tried in america—comparable to former Nationwide Treasurer Alejandro Andrade—Díaz Guillen has pleaded not responsible to the crimes he’s accused of.
Legal professionals for the couple say they plan to enchantment the sentence.
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