ANOTHER FINANCIAL SCANDAL IN PDVSA/CITGO

A small financial company with a handful of employees asked and received $550 million from Citgo for investments in their own high-risk projects. The money was apparently lost. But, how can a company that has any pretensions of being a world-rank outfit put this much money (or any money) in the hands of what we call in Venezuela a suitcase outfit, "una empresa de maletin"?
Who has been fired from Citgo? Who is being investigated in Citgo for probable collusion with the small financial company? In short, what steps are being taken to get to the bottom of this new financial scandal involving PDVSA/Citgo? .
The story:
Citgo, PDV defrauded for USD 560 million
FTC Capital Markets faces trial in New York for fraud
An executive and an employee of a broker-dealer firm were charged with defrauding Citgo Petroleum Corp, a subsidiary of PDV Holding Inc owned by Venezuelan state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa). The fraud involves USD 560 million, Reuters reported. In a purported fraud possibly involving hundreds of millions of dollars, FTC Capital Markets Inc Chairman Guillermo Clamens and Nazly Cucunuba López, also known as Lina López, were criminally charged with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud.


A parallel civil complaint by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the agency that regulates financial markets in the United States) said that New York-based Clamens was assisted by López in the firm's Miami office "knowingly caused FTC to make unauthorized purchases of securities for Citgo's and PDV's accounts under their control." It further states that both FTC executives prepared false statements.


According to the complaint, Clamens and López solicited a total of USD 560 million from Citgo and PDV between April 2008 and November 2008. They invested the money in high-risk securities without the knowledge of those investors.