The billionaire who helped broker the Trump administration's sweeping long-term oil deal with Venezuela was until recently a target of U.S. money-laundering investigations involving funds embezzled from the state-owned oil company PDVSA. Now, after assisting U.S. authorities ahead of the capture of authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, Alejandro Betancourt is Washington's key partner in an unusual oil agreement with Caracas.
According to last week's announcement, the U.S. gains access to about one-fifth of Venezuela's crude reserves for decades. The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital takes a 35% stake in North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), Betancourt's company and a known crude producer in Venezuela. The State Department gets the right to buy 20% of NABEP's oil at cost, and preferential access to the remaining 80% of output.
