MIAMI — As Venezuela’s economy was crashing in 2017, the country’s state-owned oil company hired former U.S. Rep. David Rivera for a costly public relations campaign to improve the tarnished image of the Venezuelan firm in the United States.
In just a few months, Rivera’s consulting business collected $20 million from Venezuela’s U.S. subsidiary, PDV USA, but its contract with the former Florida Republican abruptly ended when he was accused of doing little work, according to a lawsuit. Newly filed court documents reveal that Rivera diverted more than half of his PDV USA income — $13 million — to three subcontractors in Miami who supposedly provided “international strategic consulting services” for the Venezuelan firm.
One of Rivera’s subcontractors who received millions from his Venezuelan deal is a real estate developer who was convicted in one of South Florida’s biggest drug-trafficking cases, the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald have learned from court records. It’s not clear from the records whether Miami developer Hugo Perera and the other recipients of Rivera’s payments ever did any work as part of his consulting firm’s contract with PDV USA.
