This man is named Raul Gorrin Belisario. He’s a shitbag lawyer who robbed the poorest people of one of the poorest countries in South America in order to fund an opulent lifestyle of luxury yachts, private jets, and Miami real estate.

Those were the artifacts of Belisario’s success, trophies paid for by siphoning the resources of a nation in crisis…

The Players in Venezuela’s Shadow Government

The scheme was as complex as it was ruthless. The central figure, Raul Gorrin Belisario, is an influential Venezuelan businessman with interests ranging from television networks to insurance. Yet it is his shadowy alliances that tell the real story.

Alongside him, the “Bolichicos”—a group of affluent, politically connected individuals—wield influence over Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the state oil company that represents Venezuela’s primary economic artery.

The indictment weaves a tapestry of characters, each as unsavory as the next. Conspirators with ties to the highest echelons of Venezuelan government stand accused of accepting bribes and facilitating dubious foreign exchange contracts, all while public resources drained from their constituents.

The Foreign Loan Scam: Converting Venezuela’s Crisis into Personal Wealth

At the heart of this misconduct is an audacious financial scheme that exploited Venezuela’s economic vulnerability.

In 2014, with Venezuela’s currency—bolivars—teetering on the brink, PDVSA officials allegedly agreed to a foreign loan contract proposed by Belisario’s network. Through his shell companies, Belisario secured a deal that saw PDVSA paying Eaton Global Services (a Hong Kong-based shell under his control) the Euro equivalent of $600 million for bolivars that held a street value of only $50 million. It was a transaction that exemplifies profiteering at its most callous, netting Belisario’s cabal an instant profit of $550 million.

The indictment reveals that this profit was not a happy accident but the calculated goal of a scheme designed to exploit the nation’s artificially high currency rates. After the funds transferred, Belisario and his associates allegedly doubled down, pushing PDVSA to inflate the contract to $1.2 billion, ensuring that Venezuela’s loss was maximized and their own profit secured.

Money Laundering as an Art Form

Once the illicit profits poured in, Belisario and his conspirators embarked on an international spree of shell companies and foreign bank accounts, where their wealth would be obscured, concealed behind a labyrinthine network that spanned Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Here, a particularly insidious form of laundering emerged: the use of shell companies with names as mundane as “Unicom” and “Rantor” to justify transactions that would have otherwise drawn the suspicion of global financial institutions.

For the purpose of shielding their ill-gotten gains, Belisario and his colleagues reportedly relied on a playbook of offshore maneuvers. European financial institutions, particularly one managed by Belisario’s Swiss associate Ralph Steinmann, were instrumental. Transactions to shell companies allowed the conspirators to move millions across borders with a veneer of legitimacy, obscuring the origins of their wealth while enjoying the fruits of their schemes.

The Price Paid by Venezuela’s Citizens

To the average Venezuelan, these events feel akin to folklore—stories so distant and surreal they seem to have been conjured up in a thriller. Yet, the impact of these schemes is as real as the hollowed-out national economy left in their wake. PDVSA, once the crown jewel of the Venezuelan economy, was left gutted, and Venezuelan officials—entrusted to oversee public assets—became willing conspirators in this campaign of embezzlement and enrichment.

For Venezuela’s people, this wasn’t merely a story of corruption but a lived experience. The consequences have been profound: as currency reserves dwindled, so did access to basic needs. Medical shortages, food scarcity, and skyrocketing inflation—the symptoms of Venezuela’s ongoing economic crisis—were intensified as public funds were diverted away from social welfare and into the bank accounts of Belisario and his network.

The Human Toll and Moral Bankruptcy

The full fallout of this scheme extends beyond economic hardship. The misappropriation of public funds strips communities of their resilience and deepens social divides. As wealth disappeared offshore, workers saw wages diminish in value; families who once relied on subsidized food programs or affordable healthcare found themselves abandoned by the very officials they trusted to safeguard the nation’s future.

Here lies the cruel irony: while officials lived in luxury abroad, Venezuela’s citizens scraped by in an increasingly unstable nation. And for Belisario and his associates, the wealth that bought Miami mansions and superyachts was, in essence, stolen not just from PDVSA but from the country’s most vulnerable.

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Raul Gorrin Belisario’s website used to be https://raulgorrin.net/en/ but it has since gone offline.

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