Venezuelan TV mogul charged in S. Florida of hiding embezzled funds

MIAMI — A Venezuelan TV network mogul has been charged in South Florida with siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from Venezuela’s government and laundering the illicit money through U.S. banks and luxury real estate investments, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.

The indictment charges Raul Gorrin, a politically connected Caracas businessman, with conspiring to bribe Venezuelan officials and commit money laundering by hiding the embezzled government funds in South Florida and other parts of the United States over the past decade.

Federal authorities plan to seize Gorrin’s Cocoplum estate in Coral Gables, which has been on the market for $8 million. The waterfront home is among dozens of his properties in South Florida and New York that are tainted by criminal activity, authorities said.

Gorrin’s defense attorney, Howard Srebnick, could not be reached for comment late Monday. In previous interviews, Srebnick has denied his client committed any wrongdoing.

The U.S. investigation of Gorrin initially focused on Alejandro Andrade, a former high-ranking Venezuelan treasury official who had worked as a bodyguard for the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Gorrin, 49, is accused of conspiring with Andrade, 53, although he is not identified by name in the indictment. The indictment was originally filed under seal in August by Miami federal prosecutor Michael Nadler.

The South Florida probe of Andrade was first reported by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald in March. Andrade, who served as national treasurer between 2007 and 2010, was charged with money laundering in late 2017 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to a conspiracy offense.

Andrade’s criminal case has still not been unsealed, nor has his defense attorney, Curtis Miner, responded to requests for comment.

Andrade was staying at his equestrian ranch in the affluent Wellington community of Palm Beach County while assisting federal authorities in the massive foreign corruption and money-laundering probe. But federal agents eventually seized his property, including prized thoroughbred horses, last week as part of a forfeiture action.

The entire case — including Andrade’s name as a defendant — was sealed in January by U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg in West Palm Beach for his protection while he cooperated with federal prosecutors and Homeland Security Investigations agents in the case against others, court records show.

Rosenberg noted in her sealing order that “disclosure of the defendant’s name and the existence of these filed charges could present a clear and present danger to the defendant and his relatives.”

Andrade, Gorrin and the other associates in Venezuela’s government, banking and business sectors are accused of enriching themselves by capitalizing on favorable foreign currency exchanges and concealing their huge profits in European and U.S. bank accounts and investments, according to the indictment.

Gorrin is accused of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Andrade and another official in the national treasury office by funneling the money to them through a Venezuelan banker in the Dominican Republic, according to federal authorities familiar with the probe.

The latest indictment is unrelated to a $1.2 billion South Florida moneylaundering case filed in July that charged nine defendants, including some close to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, with embezzling vast sums of money from the country’s national oil company and washing it through foreign currency exchanges to magnify profits. Millions in ill-gotten funds were invested in South Florida’s real estate market, including luxury high-rise condos.

Two defendants in that case — Gorrin’s personal banker Matthias Krull and former Venezuelan national oil-company executive Abraham Ortega — have pleaded guilty to money-laundering conspiracy charges and are cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Homeland Security Investigations.

Gorrin, owner of the Globovision network in Caracas, has not been charged in that case. He is suspected of steering $600 million from the country’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, to a European bank to enrich himself, the three stepsons of Maduro and other members of Venezuela’s politically connected elite, according to court records and multiple sources familiar with the federal probe in Miami. Maduro’s stepsons and the president himself are also under investigation in that case.

Gorrin came from

humble origins in Venezuela. He became a lawyer but eventually evolved into a successful businessman. He gained control of insurance company Aseguradora La Vitalicia, which he acquired in 2008 with partners Juan Domingo Cordero and Gustavo Perdomo. They also joined him in the purchase of Globovision five years later.

The sale of Globovision was a big blow to the opposition in Venezuela, shutting down the last TV channel that challenged government censorship. The station’s programming changed dramatically after the sale, as prominent journalists resigned when the new owners tried to impose a gag rule.

In late 2017, Gorrin tried to broker an exit strategy with the Trump administration for Venezuela’s beleaguered government, according to various Washington sources, by peddling the idea that Maduro and other key government leaders might be willing to negotiate a transition in Venezuela in exchange for amnesty. Gorrin met Vice President Mike Pence and was seeking a meeting with President Donald Trump at the time, the sources said.

Also last year, Gorrin retained Ballard Partners — Trump’s former Florida lobbyist — at a cost of $50,000 a month to help his Venezuelan TV network expand into U.S. markets.

However, that relationship abruptly ended. A Ballard spokesperson told the Miami Herald that the firm terminated its representation of Globovision, citing concerns about a Herald story in late July reporting that the media mogul was suspected of participating in a massive money-laundering racket.

Both Gorrin and Perdomo have considerable real estate holdings in the United States, including properties in the wealthy Cocoplum enclave of Coral Gables - despite being part of a Venezuelan elite that once drew public scorn from U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

“Do you know where they live?” Rubio, the Florida Republican, asked Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, at a Senate hearing in 2014 to approve sanctions against key leaders of the Venezuelan government.

“They live in Miami, where they own a mansion worth millions of dollars in Cocoplum,” Rubio said. “They drive luxury cars and they laugh at you and at us because they know they can do that with impunity.”

Gorrin’s Cocoplum estate is on the market for $8 million. Perdomo’s Cocoplum home is also for sale at $4.75 million. In addition, Gorrin owns a plush Manhattan apartment worth close to $20 million and, according to court records, a Fisher Island condo. He sold two other Manhattan apartments for a total of $10 million, records show.