(The Wall Street Journal, Samuel Rubenfeld, 30.Oct.2018) — U.S. prosecutors said they secured another guilty plea in their ongoing corruption probe of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA.
Ivan Alexis Guedez, a former PdVSA procurement officer from Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 20, 2019. Mr. Guedez agreed to forfeit the proceeds of his activity, prosecutors said.
“Ivan is a good man. He looks forward to putting this matter behind him,” said Matt Hennessy, an attorney for Mr. Guedez.
Including Mr. Guedez, at least 15 people have pleaded guilty in connection with the larger, ongoing probe into bribery at PdVSA, prosecutors said Tuesday in a statement.
Mr. Guedez agreed with other PdVSA officials and businessmen employed by a Miami-based PdVSA supplier that, in exchange for bribe payments, they would direct PdVSA business toward the supplier, prosecutors said.
The payments were concealed, prosecutors said, through communications involving fictitious email addresses, the creation of false invoices to justify the payments and directing the bribes to a Swiss account in the name of a shell company before their disbursement.
Write to Samuel Rubenfeld at Samuel.Rubenfeld@wsj.com.
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