Punish corruption
America can do more by prosecuting Venezuelan oligarchs hiding in Texas.
If the Trump administration is committed to punishing the Venezuelan government and alleviating the suffering of the country’s citizens, part of the solution lies close to home.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, speaking at the University of Houston this week, aimed tough talk at the South American nation weeks after the United States placed new sanctions on 23 Venezuelan citizens and firms.
All have close ties to the government headed by President Nicolas Maduro, which has fantastically mismanaged Venezuela’s economy, squandered its vast natural resources and left millions of its citizens hungry, impoverished and without a democratic government. The Trump administration is right to take a hard line against the oligarchs who have ruined Venezuela, but if we are serious about helping the Venezuelan people, we must prosecute or expel the hundreds of corrupt Venezuelans living in the United States — many of whom are in Texas.
Graft has been widespread in Venezuela’s energy industry, especially since Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, became president in 1999. Scholars and law enforcement officials believe hundreds of Venezuelans who made fortunes by scamming the government and its state-owned oil company, PDVSA, have settled quietly in American cities like Houston and Miami.
Yet only recently has the Department of Justice begun to bring cases against them. In 2015, federal prosecutors scored their biggest victory to date — the indictment of The Woodlands businessman Robert Rincon, who the feds say led a $1 billion scheme to defraud PDVSA. That ongoing case has netted 14 more prosecutions of Venezuelans, including an additional five in February. Many live in the large expatriate community in Katy.
Around 11,000 Venezuelan immigrants call the Houston area home. The vast majority are uninvolved with the corrupt oligarchs who hide among them, and many fled Venezuela to escape the Chavez/Maduro regime or help support desperate family members there. They are understandably frustrated to see corrupt countrymen move into their neighborhoods.
While American sanctions against the Maduro regime are warranted, they do have collateral consequences. Limiting the ability of Venezuela’s oil industry to do business with U.S. firms hurts the country’s main source of revenue, which helps feed a country where all but the wealthiest citizens experience food shortages.
Indicting more corrupt Venezuelans in the United States would do no such harm and also could deter more oligarchs from settling here. We can no longer turn a blind eye to those who have looted their country and seek the safety of America as Venezuela descends into chaos. We should have zero tolerance for money launderers.
American firms should also re-evaluate relationships with PDVSA and Citgo, its U.S.-based subsidiary. We’re especially perplexed that the city of Houston since 2017 has sold the chief sponsorship of its Independence Day celebration, Freedom Over Texas, to Citgo. By holding a sham presidential election, pledging to rewrite the constitution and cracking down on protests last year, which killed 165 people, the values of the Maduro government clearly clash with those of our Founding Fathers.
American intervention in Latin America has too often aided anti-democratic governments, and though the Trump administration is right to call out the Venezuelan government for how it has failed its own people, our options are limited. We must refuse to allow corrupt Venezuelans to take refuge in our financial system and in our safe suburbs.
For the thousands of Venezuelan Americans who watch in horror as their native country teeters on the brink of collapse, it is the least we can do.