They discover a secret account that reveals the sumptuous life of María Gabriela Chávez in New York
During her stay in New York as a diplomatic representative to the United Nations, the daughter of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, María Gabriela Chávez, used a bank account that accounts for the sophisticated style of consumption that the then diplomatic official had, who was used to carrying out purchases in the most elite stores in the Big Apple, a fact that contrasts with the austerity preached by Bolivarian socialism, according to DiariolasAméricas
By Miami Diario Newsroom
According to documents, the bank account had several million dollars in deposits and transfers to third parties, and was later canceled due to suspicions of money laundering as a result of corruption. The owner was the Venezuelan lawyer Roberto Leyba, known as the boyfriend of María Gabriela.
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Two weeks after Chávez's daughter was appointed alternate ambassador to the United Nations, the checking account opened in October 2014 at the then Mercantil Commercebank in Miami was discovered.
According to documents from Florida regulatory bodies reviewed by First Report, the account was created to "cover personal expenses."
Shopping record
A detailed record of purchases made in Manhattan was included in a "suspicious activity" report for that bank account, which was fed with funds whose legitimate origin the account holder did not adequately explain to regulators.
Leyba's relationship with María Gabriela was considered in the North American financial system as a Politically Exposed Person (PEP), a designation that includes people who hold or have held political positions in foreign governments. In this way, the expenses in New York were part of the investigation.
A source revealed that Leyba frequently traveled to New York but formally resided in Venezuela. Every time he traveled to the Big Apple, Leyba notified that his stay would last for several months, although the bank had no way of confirming that he was indeed in Manhattan while the card was being used.
The Leyba-Chávez couple, according to debit card movements, spent tens of thousands of dollars in exclusive luxury stores such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Michael Kors and Kenneth Cole, all located in Manhattan.
Between October 23 and 26, 2015, the account registered payments for about $9,000 at the Chanel store in Midtown Manhattan. The exclusive store, located just 12 minutes from the United Nations headquarters, offers everything from perfumes, watches and handbags, to shoes, glasses and expensive jewelry with exclusive designs.
It was learned that María Gabriela's favorite stores were Forever 21 (with two purchases of almost $2,300), the Victoria's Secret lingerie store (three visits in five days with more than $1,000), and the MAC cosmetics store in Times Square. , visited four times with disbursements of more than $1,600.
The couple also visited stores such as Louis Vuitton ($1,371), Hugo Boss ($367), Kenneth Cole ($895), Michael Kors ($324), Luxottica ($431 in glasses) and the curious Zoomies, a store that defines itself as the first " New York Dog Biscuit Bar,” located in Greenwich Village.
life of rich
As can be deduced from the financial movements of the couple, María Gabriela Chávez had a lavish and cosmopolitan lifestyle: $600 dinners at TAO, a restaurant described as a mixture of influences from Italy, Spain, France and Greece; shows at Madison Square Garden, with ticket bills of more than $2,200; visits of $300 per person to the Minskoff, known both for being the venue for the musical The Lion King, and for serving as the venue for Miss Universe in 1981, whose crown was won by Venezuelan Irene Sáez.
Chávez's daughter and her boyfriend, in their long shopping list, showed a particular taste for brand stores such as Holister Co, American Eagle, GAP, H&M and Tumi, the latter a luxury luggage store where they spent two seated more than $4,000.
It also highlights a distinctive visit to Ricky's, a famous beauty salon that boasts a “cult” clientele, ranging from “style-conscious teens” to “suburban moms” to “Hollywood celebrities” and “ professional stylists.
They also visited shoe stores such as Journeys ($239), Designer Shoe Warehouse, DSW ($323), Converse ($58.71), Lady Foot Locker ($155), and Niketown ($1,114) and Ana Koordi Shoes ($307). In just over three months, spending on shoes of more than $2,300 was recorded.
María Gabriela and Leyba showed interest in electronic equipment stores such as the iconic Apple store on Fifth Avenue ($138), the Best Buy chain (two purchases for $614), the Bose sound equipment store ($364), and Broadway Camera & Electronics, a company where a bill of $435 was paid for imaging equipment.
Funds
The truth is that the bank account that financed María Gabriela's "American dream" for years was finally closed in 2016 due to "inconsistencies."
It should be noted that Leyba had declared that she had an income of about $800,000 a year, distributed between $300,000 in "salary" and $500,000 in "other income," according to the documents.
As is known, Leyba is a partner in the firm Leyba & MavaresCivil, registered in the city of Maracaibo, in western Venezuela. She is also listed in at least two corporations in Florida, both currently inactive: Queen Shell LLC, created in September 2013, and Leyba Mavares Consulting LLC, created in May 2013.
The account received, between mid-2015 and mid-2016, a dozen transfers from a Bank of Cyprus account in the name of the company Atlantides Shipping CO Ltd. The explanation of the deposits: payment of “commissions” for the purchase of the MV Speed Runner boat.
There are also other operations for almost $1.25 million that were explained by the client as payment for professional services for “legal advice” for the “acquisition of a “ferry” type vessel from Naviera Paraguaná CA”
Thanks to the investigations, it was possible to determine that the transfers were part of an alleged corruption scheme in the acquisition of ferry-type ships by the Naviera Paraguaná firm.
It should be noted that the bank's alarms went off when one of Leyba's partners, Nelson Colmenares, denounced that the purchase of transportation "ferries", which were going to be used on a hypothetical Punto Fijo-Aruba-Curaçao route, was they were buying at prices double the original cost.
The partner in the Naviera Paraguaná firm, Colmenares, denounced that Leyba requested funds for $11.6 million from the Foreign Trade Bank to purchase the Speedrunner II vessel, which was later renamed Paraguaná I, despite the fact that the real cost of the ship “ferry” was just over $5 million.
Banking regulators in the United States took note of the complaint, which was presented to the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office, but the investigations never advanced.
One thing to consider is that part of the funds that fed Leyba's bank account in Miami came from this financial transaction, a factor that decisively influenced its closure, according to the documents reviewed by the First Report.
Other suspicious operations were also raised that set off bank alarms.
According to the report on the case, María Gabriela's boyfriend also made transfers to US accounts of Venezuelan citizens who turned out to be employees of the Venezuelan diplomatic mission to the United Nations, including officers Francisco Cardona Hernández and Ana Carolina Rodríguez de Febres. -Mutton. None of these operations, possibly intended to send money to his fiancée in New York, was satisfactorily justified.
Links with PDVSA
María Gabriela's boyfriend also had close relations with government agencies in Venezuela. His partner at the firm Leyba & MavaresCivil, Lewis José Mavares García, was appointed in March 2018 as Legal Consultant of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Leyba and Mavares, according to complaints made in Venezuela, controlled an important "judicial tribe" that obtained financial benefits from their "influence in the high government" of Nicolás Maduro, including the $11 million in state financing for the purchase of overpriced vessels, in the case cited above.
Leyba also appears as a partner of the Venezuelan Attorneys Civil Association firm, established in Venezuela, which operated the Venezuelan Attorneys Management LLC firm, registered in Katy, Texas, together with the lawyer Eduardo Amesty Chirinos. That Texas company was a contractor for PDV USA Inc., through which Leyba Morales received a large annual stipend for supposed consulting work for the Citgo company.
María Gabriela Chávez was appointed in 2014 as alternate ambassador in the diplomatic legation of Venezuela in the UN, in New York. She lived there until February 2019, when she left office, according to the Minister Counselor of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, Gustavo Marcano.
Sources from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry indicated that María Gabriela rarely attended the Venezuelan diplomatic legation at the United Nations, among other reasons, because she did not have a good relationship with the then ambassador, Rafael Ramírez.
According to salary schedules for diplomatic personnel in service, María Gabriela could have received a monthly salary of $8,500. She lived in an apartment in the Tribeca area, in Lower Manhattan, which, according to documents, was paid for with resources from the oil company Citgo, then owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, SA
At the time she was appointed to the diplomatic post, she was accused of having participated in alleged cases of administrative corruption. In June 2014, three months before she took office in New York, the Argentine newspaper Clarín published that María Gabriela was linked to an Argentine firm that exported thousands of tons of food to Venezuela at prices "much higher than those of the market." market"
A month later, opposition deputies Abelardo Díaz and Homero Ruiz denounced that María Gabriela was involved in a contract between the Venezuelan government and the Argentine firm Bioart SA, for the acquisition of rice and white corn with an alleged surcharge of $15.5 million.
After that complaint, in numerous messages on social networks collected by media such as the ABC of Spain, María Gabriela began to be characterized as "the queen of rice".
Interestingly, María Gabriela responded to the accusations of corruption by stating that they were not attacks directed at her, but at the memory of Hugo Chávez.
More complaints
María Gabriela was accused, in November 2018, by prosecutor Luisa Ortega Díaz of having benefited from the corruption network led by Alejandro Andrade, former National Treasurer of Venezuela.
Andrade was jailed this year after pleading guilty to receiving more than $1 billion in bribes while he was a public official.
Prosecutor Ortega Díaz specified that María Gabriela had two open investigations for money laundering in the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office (under number MP 4391762016), in one of them together with Leyba.
She added that "the United States is on her trail" because of her links to the Andrade case.
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