The Search for Happily-Ever-After by Patricia Baehr

While as much as $300 billion is estimated to have been raided from Venezuela’s state coffers in two decades of socialist rule, investigators’ understanding of how the dirty money was laundered is still emerging. Those transactions are now at the center of an international criminal investigation into the network of shell companies and dodgy Swiss bankers that have helped turn Venezuela into one of the most corrupt countries in the world. A few years later, a nearly identical amount of bullion was apparently sold by a representative of Díaz, with much of the proceeds deposited into a Swiss bank. The bars, weighing a kilogram (2.2 pounds) each, were allegedly stored at a private vault in the tiny European principality available to Díaz and her son after his 18th birthday. Vincent and the Grenadines that she allegedly controlled purchased 250 gold bars valued at more than $9.5 million, according to court records from Liechtenstein obtained by The Associated Press. In quick succession a shell company established in the Caribbean island nation of St. So Díaz allegedly turned to one of the oldest ways of moving vast sums of money anonymously: buying gold. Then-president Hugo Chávez, who she once served as a nurse, had recently died and with the election of Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s politics and relations with the U.S. MIAMI (AP) - It was 2014 and Venezuela’s former treasurer Claudia Díaz was looking for a safe haven to store the unexplained wealth she had accumulated over the years. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

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The Search for Happily-Ever-After by Patricia Baehr