Claudia Díaz, the former nurse of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez – who appointed her as Venezuela’s national treasurer – has been jailed for 15 years by a US court for laundering millions of dollars.
According to the BBC, Díaz is the latest in a series of Venezuelan ex-top officials to be jailed in the US.
Díaz and her husband, Adrián Velásquez – who was President Chávez’s head of security – were found guilty of laundering millions of dollars they had received in bribes from a Venezuelan media mogul.
Both had denied the charges, and had rejected a plea deal.
Díaz and Velásquez were arrested in 2018 in Spain, where they lived a lavish lifestyle.
She had claimed their wealth came from businesses belonging to her husband before they had met, the BBC reports.
However, a court in Florida found the couple had accepted and laundered millions of dollars in bribes from Venezuelan media mogul Raúl Gorrín during Díaz’s time at the helm of Venezuela’s treasury from 2011 until 2013.
In exchange for the bribes, Díaz allowed Raúl Gorrín to buy US dollars at a cheaper rate from the treasury which he then resold on the black market at a huge profit, the court found.
Media tycoon Gorrín, who owns Globovisión news network, also faces corruption charges, and has been placed on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ‘most wanted’ list. He is believed to be in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
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