Caracas Chronicles

• A federal court in Florida charged five people for their roles in a money-laundering scheme, consisting of laundering the profits from contracts obtained with bribes to supply food and medicine to Venezuela from 2015 to 2020. 
  • They’ve all had relations with Álex Saab: Álvaro Pulido Vargas, Emmanuel Rubio (Pulido’s son), Carlos Lizcano; José Gregorio Vielma Mora (former governor of Táchira, former Exterior Commerce minister and deputy in Nicolás’s AN), and Ana Jeannette Guillermo Luis. 
  • They received at least 1,600 million dollars from the State and 180 million dollars were transferred to and from U.S. bank accounts. 

Even though Maduro and his Education minister have said that students may return to the classroom on October 25th, union leaders explained that it wouldn’t be possible because schools lack the conditions. 

• • Poor infrastructure, no running water, electricity failures and lack of transportation are some of the conditions they face. 
  • Teachers lost 95% of the rights in their contracts and without a salary increase, they refuse to go back to teaching. 
  • They demand to be paid between 35 and 71 dollars per month, most teachers don’t even make 8 dollars per month at the moment. They demand access to reliable information about the vaccination rate for teachers. 
  • According to PAHO, less than 22 out of 100 people are vaccinated.  

• Dheliz Álvarez will substitute Eneida Laya as Commerce minister and her brother Johann Álvarez, will replace her as the new president of the Banco del Tesoro. 
• The president of Caracas Metro, General Graciliano Ruiz Gamboa, offered employment for people who can work on re-starting the work to build the Guarenas-Guatire line. He said that they have a €15 million budget, a number far from the €1,600 million that Odebrecht had. 
• A total of 822,840 doses of Sputnik V arrived in the country. According to the regime, with this shipment, they’ve received 3.3 million doses. 
• Delcy Rodríguez said that Venezuela will produce the prototype of Cuban vaccine candidate for Abdala, which hasn’t been approved by WHO, and that it will receive 12 million of the Soberana prototype, which hasn’t been approved either, to vaccinate children between 2 and 12 years old. 
• ANC-imposed prosecutor general Tarek William Saab announced he’s activating a plan for regularizing temporary prosecutors and that the ministry has presented over 30 pieces of evidence in the new trial for the murder of David Vallenilla in June 2017. 
• The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons reported that the trial for the PoliCarabobo massacre, where sixty-nine inmates died, has started. 

Deputies of the 2015 Assembly visited Monómeros to elaborate a report that must be presented in the next couple of days. They met with company executives to obtain detailed information. 

• The Banco Bicentenario will allow Tachira residents to open bank accounts with Colombian pesos. 
• María Corina Machado assured that Juan Guaidó had “the best opportunity in history” to overthrow Maduro, but that “unfortunately” he didn’t achieve the goal. 
• Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal tried to delay his extradition to the U.S. with yet another appeal to the Audiencia Nacional’s decision, insisting on the asylum request that has already been denied to him twice. The Spanish justice system rejected postponing the extradition and Carvajal’s “dilatory strategy,” wanting to cooperate just now and not earlier. He can be a witness in the case from an American prison. 
  • Carvajal’s revelations have made an impact in Argentina since he said that before Antonini Wilson’s trip, there were “20 flights with deliveries with one million dollars each” to finance kirchnerismo, after which Argentinian prosecutor Carlos Stornelli demanded access to his statement in order to investigate his claims. 

• Regarding Alex Saab’s case, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Biden’s government doesn’t get involved in matters that are up to the Justice Department. Nicolás’s AN approved an agreement in support of Saab. The alleged members of the “opposition” didn’t reject the agreement that demands his freedom, condemns the extradition and supports suspending the negotiation in Mexico. 
• A Peruvian court forbade the regime’s ambassador Richard Rojas from leaving Peru for six months. He’s under investigation for money laundering and illegally financing the campaign of political party Perú Libre. 
• The inhabitants of the Pacaraima municipality, on the border with Brazil, exhorted the federal government to intervene in controlling Venezuelan migration. “This chaotic situation can’t continue, they can’t keep sleeping, peeing and pooping on the streets and even stealing to get food, sometimes,” said Kleber Borges, a representative of the Commerce Chamber.