Caracas Chronicles

• Armando.info published on Sunday a piece explaining how sanctions on Alex Saab, who was detained in Cape Verde seven months ago, and the sanctions on Libre Abordo company, haven’t been an obstacle in his line of work. The evidence reviewed by Armando.info and El País allowed to prove that Saab and Libre Abordo were barely the tip of the iceberg in the clandestine circuit of oil exports designed to avoid sanctions. Businessmen Joaquín Leal (Mexican) and Sandro Bazzoni (Italian), are also part of the scheme and used fake companies in Mexico, Russia and the UAE to sell millions of oil produced by PDVSA. 
• Delcy Rodríguez was in Havana on Saturday and manifested her expectation of the Biden administration acting according to international law. Both regimes, Cuba and Venezuela, are interested in reestablishing diplomatic relations that would allow them to dialogue, even though they both violate human rights. She announced that the regimes will create an office to follow up on the sanctions. She said that she traveled there to present the Anti-Blockade Law and to discuss economic and commercial relations. 
• “We have to build the most powerful public healthcare system in the world, as it’s stated in our Constitution,” said Maduro on the 22nd year of chavismo in power. He inaugurated the National Ozone Center and added that “vaccines are a hope, but only a hope”. In September, the Sociedad Venezolana de Infectología declared that ozone isn’t effective in the fight against COVID-19. 
• Maduro’s Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza announced a donation of thousands of liters of ozone to Manaus, to help in the surge of cases. Julio Borges said this was blackmail and that it was an attempt to get political support. 
• Dr. Policarpo Cañas, technician Maglis Méndez, and Msr. Jesús Quintero Albornoz died of coronavirus complications this weekend.
• Timoteo Zambrano, a member of Maduro’s prêt-à-porter opposition, accused Exxon Mobil of buying the ICJ after their Esequibo ruling. He said that the oil company gave Guyana $15 million to pay off the ICJ and sue Venezuela, just because Exxon has an interest in oil in Guyana. 

• To ensure he’d be making the headlines, Zambrano said that he’s working on two mega-elections in the next four years: one in December 2021 and another one in 2024 that would include presidential elections. 
• Journalist Sebastiana Barráez reported that a sex trafficking network was uncovered in Apure. A network that sexually exploits children and teenagers from 13 to 16 years old. Governor Ramón Carrizalez said that the investigation will leave no stone unturned. The piece said that one of the people involved is close to General Jesús Suárez Chourio. CONAS has detained several suspects. “The pimps got anywhere from 3 to 4 thousand dollars and paid girls 50 or 100 dollars for having sex with older men,” adds Barráez. 
• Jorge Arreaza said that the court’s ruling of selling CITGO stocks is an aberration. Juan Guaidó reiterated that the executive orders issued in Delaware regarding CITGO were requested to save PDVSA’s American sister company from falling into Maduro’s terrible policies. 
• Swiss prosecutors found bank accounts with over 9,000 million francs or around 10.1 billion dollars, that would allegedly be embezzled Venezuelan public funds; according to Bloomberg. 

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Azul Positivo workers Johan León Reyes, Yordy Bermúdez, Layners Gutiérrez,  Alejandro Gómez and Luis Ferrebuz were detained for carrying out humanitarian aid work in Venezuela. The social media campaign #NosFaltan5 was developed to highlight the importance of international cooperation, the risk of criminalizing humanitarian work and demanding the UN defend people who are developing their programs on the field.