teleSUR – September 26, 2020
United States federal law enforcement has accused a key informant on the trumped up case targeting Venezuela’s Minister Tareck El Aissami of lying and stealing US $140,000.
The Associated Press reports that Venezuelan-born businessman and pilot Alejandro Marin was arrested on September 19th in Miami on three counts of knowingly making false statements to U.S. federal agents, according to court filings.
Marin operates a chartered flight business out of Miami’s Opa Locka executive airport and conspired in the plot against Vice President El Aissami, utilizing his business.
The government of Venezuela has said that the years-long persecution of Minister Tareck El Aissami, like the recent charges against President Nicolas Maduro, are part of a permanent destabilization campaign against top officials of the Bolivarian government.
AP’s Joshua Goodman reports that in coordination with US authorities, Marin had transported millions of dollars on private jets, in violation of US-imposed unilateral coercive measures.
The US $140,000 is said to have gone missing during a US-directed operation in July 2018. Federal public defender Christian Dunham, who is representing Marin, says his client is expected to appear in court on September 30th for a pre-trial detention hearing.
According to the arrest order, the stolen funds were deposited to an account controlled by Marin over two years ago.
The US government has tried various hands hoping to generate the evidence to forge a case and a narrative of criminality within the Venezuelan government.
With the mainstream media on side with Washington, the case against President Nicolas Maduro and officials, in which a US $15 million bounty was placed by the Justice Department in March, remains dubious at best as new information regarding the corrupt and criminal nature of the Venezuelan opposition aligned with Juan Guaido comes to light.