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9 de dezembro de 2009A court has ordered the arrest of 27 bank executives for alleged violations at seven banks later taken over by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s government.
Prosecutors have also asked Interpol for help to detain nine of the suspects who are thought to have fled the country.
Chávez said Monday that “there are no sacred cows here,” after the arrest of Banco Real president Arne Chacon, a brother of Science and Technology Minister Jesse Chacon, who resigned over the scandal.
Chávez defended his former aide, saying he didn’t have anything to do with his brother’s actions.
As for Arne Chacon, Chávez said: “He’s jailed very well and should stay there.” Chávez questioned how Chacon had come from owning little to being a bank president.
Prosecutors said in a statement Sunday that six of the 27 suspects had been detained. Seven banks have been shut down since Nov. 30, and authorities allege widespread irregularities that put some of them in financial trouble.
Chávez said authorities will seize businesses from bank owners in order to recoup bank losses caused by them.
Others arrested include Ricardo Fernandez, who led a group of investors that recently bought four of the seized banks — Canarias, Confederado, Bolivar and ProVivienda (BanPro).
Fernandez, who had a lucrative business selling food to state-run subsidized markets, is charged with misappropriating deposits and providing loans to other businesses in which he was an investor.
The other three banks taken over by the government — Central Banco Universal, Baninvest Banco de Inversion and Banco Real — were purchased earlier this year by businessman Pedro Torres Ciliberto. Chávez said Torres is now in Miami, calling him a him a “big goat.”
Two of the banks — Canarias and BanPro — are to be permanently shut down and their assets sold off. Chavez said four other banks — Bolivar, Confederado, Central and Real — will be relaunched as part of the state banking system, three of them as part of a new state-run bank called Banco Bicentenario.
