Hugo Chavez's ex-nurse indicted in US for money laundering

Hugo Chávez’s former nurse has been charged with money laundering in a Miami federal court, accused of taking bribes from a billionaire media mogul to green light lucrative currency transactions when she served as Venezuela’s national treasurer.

Claudia Díaz and her husband, Adrían Velasquez, were accused of taking at least $4.2 million in furrance of bribery scheme, according to charges presented Friday. payments came from companies and bank accounts located in Switzerland to couple's accounts in Miami.

Behind payments, according to prosecutors, was businessman Raúl Gorrín, owner of country’s last major private TV network, Globovisión. Gorrin is on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s most-wanted list after being charged for his alleged role in a $2.4 billion money laundering conspiracy in 2017. His TV network is under U.S. sanctions for its alleged role propping up socialist government of Chávez's successor, Nicolás Maduro.

Díaz, 46, was a former petty officer in Venezuela’s navy who took care of an ailing Chávez before Venezuelan leader died of cancer in 2013. In 2011, Chávez named her Venezuela’s national treasurer. She was replaced when Maduro was elected in 2013.

Díaz and her husband, a former security adviser to Chávez, currently live in Madrid, where y were briefly arrested in 2018 on a Venezuelan warrant. Spain’s supreme court rejected Venezuela’s extradition request, finding couple could be tortured if y return home.

U.S. prosecutors have charged dozens of Maduro-connected officials and businessmen as part of a campaign to root out corruption plaguing oil-rich South American nation. As much as $300 billion is estimated to have been raided from Venezuela’s state coffers in two decades of socialist rule.

It was t immediately possible to communicate with Díaz. But in August her Madrid lawyer, Ismael Oliver, denied couple had profited from ir positions in power.

Díaz succeeded Alejandro Andrade as Venezuela’s treasurer in 2011. In what is biggest judgment against a former Venezuelan to date, Andrade in 2018 agreed to forfeit more than $1 billion in proceeds he ackwledged receiving in return for approving lucrative currency deals. arrangement, allegedly promoted by Gorrín and ors, continued when Díaz took his place.

Rigid currency controls in place in Venezuela for over a decade have been a major driver of graft, allowing a privileged few to purchase hard currency from government at overvalued official exchange rate and resell on black market for huge profits.

Díaz and her husband have long struggled to explain ir abundant wealth. In 2014, a company established in Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and Grenadines that she allegedly controlled purchased 250 gold bars valued at more than $9.5 million, according to court records from Liechtenstein obtained by Associated Press.

bars, weighing a kilogram (2.2 pounds) each, were stored at a private vault in tiny European principality available to Díaz and her son after his 18th birthday. A few years later, a nearly identical amount of bullion was sold by a representative of Díaz, with much of proceeds deposited into a Swiss bank.