Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez’s former bodyguard extradited to the US

Adrian Jose Velasquez Figueroa, the former bodyguard of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, was extradited from Spain to the United States on Thursday, October 13.

The U.S. justice system wanted the former Chavista security official for allegedly having participated in the crimes of money laundering committed within a criminal organization, membership in a criminal organization, and bribery.

Velázquez is scheduled to make his first appearance before a U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida on Friday.

His wife, Claudia Diaz Guillen, popularly known as “Chavez’s nurse” and who served as General Treasurer of Venezuela, is already facing trial in the United States for similar crimes.

Specifically, this couple is accused of favoring Chavista businessman and media owner Raúl Gorrín to perpetrate fraud in Venezuela’s existing foreign exchange system between 2008 and 2017.

Thus, Gorrín would have bribed Díaz and Velásquez to have access to dollars that the Venezuelan State allocated at prices below their market quotation.

Said scheme would have procured the businessman profits estimated in hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last November, the Audiencia Nacional, through the Criminal Court, had given the green light to the extradition of Velásquez.

With information from Gaceta