In 2017, then Attorney General of Venezuela Luisa Ortega Díaz denounced the convening of a National Constituent Assembly, accusing President Nicolás Maduro of having received a $ 35 million payoff in the context of the Odebrecht scandal in which many Latin American leaders were entangled, and alleging, on the other hand, that the country’s eminent leader Diosdado Cabello had cashed in 100 million dollars in another corruption scandal.

Luisa Ortega Díaz being a long time Chavist, married to a Chavist member of parliament, Germán Ferrer, her interventions resonated widely both in Venezuela and abroad. It lent credence to the image of a Chavist regime that wallowed in corruption.

After several vicissitudes, Luisa Ortega Díaz and Germán Ferrer fled Venezuela and toured Latin America making increasingly sensational allegations.

However, on 19 April 2021, in the middle of a trial in Miami (Florida) for tax evasion, businessman Carlos Urbano Fermin admitted to having paid Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz $ 1 million in order to elude prosecution for his illicit affairs in Venezuela [1].

This confirms the theory of the Maduro government that Luisa Ortega Díaz’s allegations were groundless and that they aimed to mask her own turpitude just when the police started investigating her.

While it is true that many Latin American states are plagued by corruption, it is also important to point out that, one after the other, practically all the leaders of the Venezuelan extremist opposition, including the self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, have turned out to be corrupt, while all Venezuelan government leaders proven to be corrupt have been removed and put on trial.