Armando.Info
Jan 5
Translated from Spanish
Who is Martín Rodil, the Venezuelan expert on Venezuelan corruption issues, who has helped to deliver informants, corrupt Chavismo members, and drug traffickers to the justice system of the United States? In this report, we tell you 👇🏻 #ArmandoHistorias2022
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In the underworld of covert operations, Venezuelan Martín Rodil made a career and fame as an agent with almost magical powers to identify and help deliver informants, corrupt Chavismo and drug traffickers before US justice. His achievements could make him a hero of democracy, if his success as a private consultant was not enough.
But now in Spain a judicial process is initiated in which he is being investigated on suspicion that he extorts the same fugitives to whom he must hand over.
A key consultant for the efforts of the United States to bring to justice corrupt officials of the Venezuelan government and drug traffickers, is being investigated in Spain for allegedly extorting some of the same wealthy Venezuelans that the United States requests.
Prosecutors in Spain claim that Martin Rodil (n. Barquisimeto, 1974), the consultant in question, a lawyer and prominent expert on Venezuelan corruption issues, led a group that extorted wealthy Venezuelans suspected of corruption. The 13 members of this plot, which, with Rodil at the head, includes three Spanish policemen - Daniel Renuncio Mateos (of the municipal police of Madrid), David Berruguete (inspector of the National Police) and José Manuel Betanzos (retired officer of the Basque regional police or Ertzaintza) - and a former Hispanic-Israeli soldier, Alberto Avi Galán, are investigated for the crimes of influence peddling, corruption and money laundering, among a total of seven charges. In judicial documents of the case, still under investigation, Spanish prosecutors say that former officials who claim to have been blackmailed are prominent figures in massive public corruption scandals in Venezuela, who paid large sums of money to Rodil and his associates in the apparent belief that they would help them avoid criminal charges in the United States.
Rodil, who has not been formally charged, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Rodil's allies say that former Venezuelan officials who point him out are trying to discredit the United States' investigations into his own alleged embezzlement, deploying a campaign against a key advisor to the authorities in Washington. They say that prosecutors in Spain, a country that some experts consider a safe haven for corrupt Venezuelans, are mistakenly following an agenda that is actually part of the disinformation campaign orchestrated by these former Chavismo officials, now residing in the Iberian country.
Roger Noriega, former Undersecretary of State (equivalent to a Deputy Foreign Minister) of the United States in the administration of Republican George W. Bush (2000-2008), and who most recently worked with Rodil in his consulting business, called the Venezuelan an effective anti-corruption crusader and said payments to Rodil "were made in the context of when Martin was cooperating in carefully monitored activities," under the supervision of US authorities. The Spanish investigation would derive from "a story that is being woven by criminals with their legal advisors," said Noriega.
With extensive consulting practice, Rodil has worked with the United States anti-narcotics agency (DEA), as well as with the nation's main prosecutors offices.
Rodil has maintained two professional specialties that complement each other. It provides private consulting services to wealthy Venezuelans seeking to relocate to the United States, in part, by connecting them with officials involved in their other line of business: helping the United States government prosecute corruption and drug trafficking cases. Those Venezuelans could, in essence, exchange their internal knowledge of crimes for residence in the United States.
In extensive judicial files presented in the 29º Court of Instruction of Madrid, Spanish prosecutors allege that Rodil tried to extort at least three former Venezuelan officials: Nervis Villalobos, Javier Alvarado Ochoa and Carlos Aguilera Borjas. In investigation reports and a proposed arrest warrant filed with the court in October - before Rodil, who has not yet appeared before the judge in Madrid, appointed a lawyer - the prosecutors state that the key factor of Rodil's influence and credibility was the perception that, with his extensive connections with the US and Spanish police, he could help Venezuelans mitigate their legal problems. The investigative documents presented in the Spanish court, which ICIJ reviewed for this story, include alleged episodes in which Rodil energetically urged Venezuelans to hire his consulting services, but provide little evidence that he did so through direct threats or using any coercion.
The sums in question in the process against Rodil by Spain pale compared to the billions of dollars from the public coffers that former Venezuelan officials, including Nervis Villalobos, a former senior official of the Ministry of Energy of Venezuela during the governments of Hugo Chávez, allegedly embezzled. Some of the most prominent defendants have been awaiting trial in Spain for years.
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