2010: The President of Globovision fled to the United States to Avoid Arrest

Guillermo Zuloaga, a millionaire businessman, was the majority stockholder and President of Globovision, a 24-hour TV news station. Zuloaga was one of the highest profile critics of Hugo Chavez’s government. [1]

Zuloaga also operated two Toyota car dealerships in Caracas. Due to an immense shortage of new vehicles for sale, it is against the Law in Venezuela to hoard vehicles and then sell them for a higher price. Following a phoned-in tip, on May 21, 2009, police raided Zuloaga’s residence in eastern Caracas and confiscated 24 new vehicles. On June 5, 2009 the public prosecutor charged Zuloaga with fraud. The government accused Zuloaga’s car companies of selling cars to each other, paying each other and raising the price of the vehicles with each sale to ultimately offer it to a buyer for a price much higher than the vehicle’s original cost.[2] Zuloaga denied the charges. He faced one to five years in prison if found guilty.

On June 11, 2010, Attorney General Luisa Ortega issued an arrest warrant for Zuloaga for usury. Zuloaga fled to the United States.  Zuloaga accused the Venezuelan government of issuing the arrest warrant “with the sole objective of silencing his complaints” and the journalism he promoted. [3]

The US State Department said that: “This is the latest example of the Venezuelan government’s continuing assault on the freedom of the press.[3]” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the Obama Administration was “seriously concerned” by the arrest warrant issued for Zuloaga. The US House of Representatives held a Hearing on “Press Freedom in the Americas” on June 16, 2010.[4] In his opening statement, Representative Connie Mack called attention to “the continuing deterioration of press freedom in Venezuela” and that the arrest warrant for Zuloaga was for “trumped up charges generated after a 2009 raid of his residence”.[4]

Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN Jorge Valero pointed out that Zuloaga was wanted for crimes related to his automobile business, not for his criticism of the government. [5]

 

1.BBC, Guillermo Zuloaga, critic of Venezuelan President, in US, July 10, 2010

2. BBC, Venezuela: Globovision President Indicted, June 4, 2009

3. VOA, Venezuela persecutes Zuloaga, June 14, 2010

4.US House of Representatives, Press Freedom in the Americas, Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, June 16, 2010

5. Venezuela Responds to OAS and UN Accusations Regarding Free Speech, Venezuelanalysis, June 18, 2010

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  2020:U.S. Drug Monitoring Data Show that Venezuela is not a Major Source of Illegal Drugs On March 11, 2020, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) released a Research Report authored by Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde: Beyond the Narcostate Narrative: What U.S. Drug Monitoring Data Says About Venezuela. [1] The Report concluded that: ·         “Venezuela is not a primary transit country for U.S. bound cocaine. About 90% of all    U.S.-bound cocaine is trafficked through Western Caribbean and Eastern Pacific routes, not through Venezuela’s Eastern Caribbean seas.” The Research Report relied on data from the U.S. Interagency Consolidated Counterdrug Database (CCDB), a multi-source collection of global illegal drug trafficking events that is gathered from intelligence data such as detection and surveillance as well as interdiction and law enforcement data. The authors noted that:” According to the Department of Defense ‘The ...
Read more

The Venezuela Reader - A Blog Focused on Recent History and Venezuela-U.S. Relations

Image
  The Venezuela Reader- A Blog Focused on Recent History and Venezuela-U.S. Relations My name is Leonard G.- I am The Venezuela Reader. I am a retired agricultural policy analyst living in the Washington, DC area. After retirement and when Covid closed off many activities, I began reading about US foreign policy. I was particularly intrigued by Venezuela. So, I began reading about Venezuela five years ago and haven’t stopped. Faced with mountains of paper, I took it on myself to summarize events in Venezuela’s history and in its relations with the US. I challenged myself to write one-page summaries which are factually accurate and documented with outside sources -newspaper articles, academic articles, government reports. I have already drafted over 200 one-page summaries covering events and milestones including elections, riots, court rulings, US sanctions, oil policies, social policies, food and agriculture, racism, drug trafficking, important reports, and biographies. I am...
Read more
Image
  2025:Former United Nations Drug Official Calls Venezuelan Narco-State Narrative a Great Hoax   Pino Arlacchii was the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) from 1997 to 2002. He recently wrote an article about the U.S. declaration that Venezuela is a “narco-state.” [1] His article was translated into English and released by Venezuelanalysis. [2] Here are excerpts from his article:[2]   Pino Arlacchi : The Great Hoax Against Venezuela: Oil Geopolitics Disguised as “War on Drugs” ·        “During my time as head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), I frequently travelled to Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, but never to Venezuela. There was simply no need. ·        “The Venezuelan government’s collaboration in the fight against drug trafficking was among the best in South America, rivalled only by Cuba’s impeccable record. This makes Trump’s nar...
Read more