Ex-Venezuelan lawyer pleads guilty to accepting millions for government loan deals

MIAMI SHORES

A former top lawyer in Venezuela’s oil ministry who has been helping U.S. authorities drill deeper into a $1.2 billion moneylaundering case fueled by government corruption pleaded guilty in Miami federal court Wednesday almost one year after he surrendered.

Carmelo Urdaneta Aqui, the former legal counsel to Venezuela’s Ministry of

Oil and Mining who had sneaked across the border with Colombia en route to Miami, is the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the massive case. Five other defendants remain fugitives.

Urdaneta was accused of accepting tens of millions in bribes along with