The Venezuelan government is investigating an allegation that a Portuguese company funneled millions in unexplained payments to government officials to obtain a contract to revamp and then operate the country’s second-largest port, the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald have learned.
The allegation is that the company paid out the money, laundered through shell companies, to currently unnamed Venezuelan officials, some of whom live in the United States. In exchange, the company, Teixeira Duarte, was to be granted the opportunity to upgrade the port, build a highway expansion and then operate the port under a lucrative 20-year concession, according to the allegation.
A central figure in the alleged scheme is Jorge Hernández Fernández, the owner of a Venezuelan sports team. He did not respond to requests for comment. The claim, as laid out in documents provided to prosecutors, is that Hernández functioned as a consultant and a middleman, arranging the deal, including payments to himself and to the officials through specially created shell companies, then became upset when he felt shortchanged by millions of dollars.
The allegation stems in part from a letter, written in 2017 to Teixeira Duarte, by Hernández’s own legal representative, a Swiss lawyer named Cedric Aguet, who did not respond to requests for comment. The letter, now in the hands of prosecutors, lays out the scope of the alleged scheme. It is buttressed by the testimony of another lawyer, Vicente Muñoz, who says he investigated Hernández following an unrelated business dispute.
In the letter to Teixeira, the Swiss lawyer claims that Hernández has a contract granting him 6% of all proceeds from the port project, translating to millions of dollars yet unpaid. The letter threatens to go to authorities if the debt isn’t promptly resolved.
Although on a much smaller scale, the purported scheme bears similarities to the Odebrecht scandal that rocked Latin America in the previous decade. Odebrecht, a massive engineering and construction conglomerate with a subsidiary based in Miami, paid at least $800 million in bribes in exchange for public works contracts around the hemisphere. The scandal exposed the degree to which graft was pervasive in the awarding of contracts. Odebrecht has since rebranded as Novonor.
Hernández is best known in Venezuela as the owner of a professional basketball team, Los Guaros de Lara.
The allegation is supported by the testimony of Muñoz. In a letter now in the hands of authorities, Muñoz alleged that representatives of Teixeira Duarte, plus others, “proceeded to bribe officials at the service of the State and of the (state-run port operator) Bolipuertos S.A. in the construction and remodeling of the La Guaira port, using for this purpose (...) offshore companies run by third parties.”
The expansion of the port, which included the construction of a new terminal and several other buildings, was completed in 2015. In conjunction with that, the company received a concession to run the port, the Aguet letter states.
Muñoz, who claims he was defrauded out of $35,000 by Hernández and his partners in the unrelated business deal, said that he came across the alleged scheme when he started his own investigation.
Like Hernández, Teixeira Duarte did not reply to emails asking for comment.
Documents obtained or examined by the Herald, which are also in the possession of prosecutors, allege that Teixeira Duarte paid tens of millions through the shell companies.
Teixeira is one of Portugal’s largest construction companies, with operations in 22 countries, including the United States. The company asked Hernández to assist in obtaining privileged access to the market of government contracts in Venezuela, the Swiss letter and other records show.
Payments from Teixeira Duarte were to be deposited in shell companies created specifically for this purpose, documents shared with prosecutors and provided to the Herald show. Among those documents are emails and notes purportedly handwritten by Hernández. The Portuguese company agreed to pay for the expenses related to the creation and operation of those shell companies, with the understanding that they would be used to make direct payments to third parties unrelated to Hernández, the Aguet letter states.
Perluce Trading Limited, based in Malta, was one of the shells. It ended up playing a key role in the alleged scheme, receiving payments for services to Teixeira Duarte that were never rendered, according to the letter sent by the Swiss lawyer and passed to prosecutors.
In total, eight different service agreements were signed, but these were all “simulated” the letter says, “since Mr. Hernández never gave and will never give any financial or technical advice either to TD, or to [its affiliate] Teixeira Duarte International Ltd.,” Aguet wrote.
His letter was addressed to the company’s chairman, Pedro María Teixeira Duarte.
According to the documents in the possession of prosecutors, including the letter from Aguet, the following shell companies were used to facilitate large unexplained payments:
— Pafima, based in Panama, which received a $4.12 million deposit
.— Route Energy, based in Panama, which received $1.67 million
— Valorata, based in Panama, which received $1.02 million
— Constructora John Peruchini, origin unknown, which received $1.0 million
— Inversora Reyes, origin unknown, which received $17 million
— C.N.P., registered in Portugal, which received two deposits, one of 1.05 million euros and the other 400,000 euros. A euro is worth a little more than a dollar and 10 cents.
— Vestal, which Muñoz said he suspects was created in Switzerland, and which received $712,000.
A Venezuelan lawyer who once represented Hernández and who spoke to the Miami Herald under condition of anonymity alleged that fake service agreements were used to cover for money that was siphoned out of the operation.
At some point, officials at Teixeira Duarte began to distrust Hernández, and that distrust was the reason their relationship fell apart, the lawyer who once represented the team owner said.
The businessman felt he was being shortchanged by Teixeira, which prompted him to have his Swiss lawyer write the letter, Hernández’s former lawyer said.
Besides obtaining the port expansion project and the 20-year operating concession, Hernández helped Teixeira Duarte collect a $9 million debt owed by the Venezuelan government, the Aguet letter explained.
For that collection effort, Hernández was to receive a fee of not 6% but 19% of the amount recovered. To make the arrangement more lucrative still, he used his contacts inside the government to boost the total owed to $86 million, the Swiss lawyer said in his letter.
For that added service, Hernández was to receive a total of $14.63 million, the Aguet letter said.
According to the Aguet letter, from 2011 through 2016, the Portuguese company paid a total of $50.18 million to the shell companies. Hernández claimed he was still owed $32 million for past services, including publicity provided through a sponsorship agreement with his basketball team.
Hernández insisted that he be made whole within 15 days. Otherwise, the lawyer said, his client would go to the authorities.
The demand led to an emergency meeting between Hernández and Teixeira Duarte that was held in Spain. There was no resolution to the disagreement.
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