By Reuters
The billionaire who helped broker the Trump administration’s sweeping long-term oil deal with Venezuela was until recently a target of U.S. money-laundering investigations involving funds embezzled from the state-owned oil company PDVSA. Now, after assisting U.S. authorities ahead of the capture of authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, Alejandro Betancourt is Washington’s key partner in an unusual oil agreement with Caracas.
According to last week’s announcement, the U.S. gains access to about one-fifth of Venezuela’s crude reserves for decades. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital takes a 35 per cent stake in North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), Betancourt’s company and a known crude producer in Venezuela. The State Department gets the right to buy 20 per cent of Nabep’s oil at cost, and preferential access to the remaining 80 per cent of output.
The deal marks a striking change of fortune for Betancourt, who four people familiar with U.S. policy in Venezuela said was key to U.S. strategy and planning in the lead-up to the January 3 operation that removed former President Maduro from power and flew him to New York to face charges of drug-trafficking, which Maduro denies.
