Venezuela’s recently ousted prosecutor general, Luisa Ortega Díaz, has accused socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro of personally profiting from food rations amid the country’s widespread humanitarian crisis.
Attending a regional trade summit in Brazil, Ortega accused Maduro of profiting off of the government’s food ration delivery system, claiming that the Mexican company behind it “is presumably owned by Nicolás Maduro,” despite being registered under other names.
“I want to denounce, in front of the world, a grave situation in Venezuela: that of excessive corruption,” Ortega said at the conference. “Because of that reason, the Maduro administration is violating the constitution and law to protect itself.”
“In Venezuela, there are no guarantees that any investigation related to organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking ends in conviction because the most probable outcome is that the key evidence disappears because there are many interests in corruption not being investigated,” she continued.
She also accused high-ranking chavista Diosdado Cabello of illicitly profiting from the Brazilian firm Odebrecht, which has admitted to bribing governments across Latin America to the tune of $100 million.
The scandal-plagued firm allegedly won $300 billion in Venezuelan construction contracts; however, many of their projects remain unfinished.
Responding to Ortega’s statements, Henrique Capriles Radonski, the opposition governor of Miranda state, urged her to “get to the bottom” of the corruption scandal.
“The people need to know who is stealing their money and how much they’ve robbed,” Capriles said in a statement. “If they hadn’t stolen the income of Venezuelans, we would never be in this economic situation of shortages, hunger, and poverty.”
The allegations of corruption are all the more shocking given Venezuela’s current economic predicament. Amidst skyrocketing inflation, the country’s monthly minimum wage has fallen to under $6 and there are chronic shortages of food, medicine, electricity, and basic sanitary products.
Ortega fled Venezuela this week with her husband for Colombia after taking a speedboat the island of Aruba and then flying to the capital of Bogotá.
Ortega, who for years served as a pro-government attorney general and loyalist to the late Hugo Chávez, was fired by Maduro’s “national constituents assembly” (ANC), a fraudulent legislative body, after she began filing charges of human rights abuses against the regimes security forces.
Following her departure, Venezuelan authorities broadcasted a raid on Ortega’s home on national television, with images showing officers rifling through luxury items such as designer clothes, fine wines, and signed artworks belonging to the former attorney general.
The replacement attorney general, Tarek William Saab, has, in turn, accused Ortega herself of “grave moral and ethical infractions,” and last week unveiled a number of corruption charges against her including claims she ran “extortion gang” by funneling profits into an offshore account, as well as blaming her for the deaths of protesters during the widespread anti-government demonstrations that have taken place since April.
Yesterday, Ortega confirmed she would return to Colombia, where Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has confirmed he will grant asylum. It is not yet clear whether she will accept it.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com
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