TARECK EL AISSAMI

Dozens of obscure brokers are at the center of a new crackdown in Venezuela on corruption in the state-run oil industry that has government insiders scurrying for cover.

Venezuela’s attorney general says 21 people, including senior officials in President Nicolás Maduro's government and business leaders, have been arrested in connection with a corruption scheme involving international oil sales.

The man responsible for running Venezuela’s oil industry — the one that pays for virtually everything in the troubled country, from subsidized food to ridiculously cheap gas — has quit amid investigations into alleged corruption among public officials.

FILE - In this May 19, 2018 file photo, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, right, and then Vice President Tareck El Aissami tour the construction site of La Rinconada baseball stadium on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela. The prosecution of El Aissami, Venezuelas Oil Minister, for violating U.S. sanctions has run into another snag after a federal judge on Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, allowed one of his co-defendants to withdraw a guilty plea over allegations U.S. attorneys withheld evidence in the case. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan, File)The prosecution of Venezuela’s Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami for violating U.S. sanctions has run into another snag after a federal judge allowed one of his co-defendants to withdraw a guilty plea over allegations that U.S. attorneys withheld evidence in the case. Like Mones, Marin owns a flight charter company that allegedly arranged flights for El Aissami and Lopez. The same unit is prosecuting El Aissami, who has celebrated the prosecutorial setbacks.

One of Asia's biggest asphalt companies, Tipco Asphalt, is helping Venezuela skirt harsh U.S. sanctions by moving hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the state-run oil company PDVSA, according to an Associated Press investigation. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)MIAMI – Back in January, a yearlong campaign of U.S. sanctions was taking its toll at Venezuela’s state-run oil company. Two other family members also appear to have worked at the company, according to public records. He said the legal advice Tipco received, including from U.S. firms, never indicated it’s crude procurement from Venezuela violated sanctions. That’s far in excess of what should’ve been a roughly $8 per barrel discount for the tar-like blend of crude, according to Venezuela’s publicly-available pricing formula for Asia.

The decision came to light Thursday in a report by Russ Dallen, the head of Caracas Capital Markets, which closely monitors litigation involving Venezuela. Attorneys for Lpez are now pinning their hopes on an emergency appeal filed Tuesday to Justice Sonia Sotomayor in accordance with Supreme Court rules. They were freed 12 years ago Thursday along with former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt in a daring rescue by Colombias army. In 2012, a federal judge in Florida awarded the men $318 million to be paid from bank accounts seized from drug traffickers linked to the FARC, a designated terrorist group. Lpez is a powerful businessman in Venezuela whose fortune soared thanks to government contracts in the past two decades of socialist rule.