Today, by coincidence, the Prosecutor General had to deliver his annual report to the National Assembly. Just to make sure the readers are all in the same page, I will like to remind everyone what this position entails in Venezuela, since he is more than just a Prosecutor, having a broad mandate given by the Constitution which includes making sure the law is upheld and I have selected some of his responsibilities.
Article 285. The responsibilities ascribed to the Prosecutor are:
2. To guarantee the speed and good order of the administration of Justice, prior trials and due process.
3. To order and direct the penal investigations when a punishable crime has been committed to record that they were committed with all of the circumstances that could influence in determining the crime and responsibilities of the authors and other participants, as well as taking care of the active and passive objects relating to the perpetration.
5. To attempt the actions that could be valid to determine the civil, labor, military, penal, administrative or disciplinarian responsibility in which public workers may have incurred in the exercise of their functions.
Now, today the General Prosecutor, Isaias Rodriguez, the same one of the Anderson crime which was “solved” (Whatever happened to that?) said during his speech in the National Assembly:
“I will not yet open an investigation because the supposed crime was committed there (In Argentina)”
Now, I am no lawyer, but let’s look at the basics of the case:
A man carrying a Venezuelan passport is caught arriving in Buenos Aires with US$ 800,000 in cash in an airplane which originated in Venezuela. Public statements from Argentinean sources say that some PDVSA employees and the son of an high PDVSA executive were on the plane because they asked for, and received, a ride from the Argentinean oil company which chartered the airplane.
I can see, at least, the following possible illegalities involved:
a) The man clearly left Venezuela with more than $10,000 in cash which is forbidden by the “Ley de Ilicitos Cambiarios”� (Foreign Exchange Illegalities Bill*).
b) The man may have committed a crime in acquiring those US$ 800,000, since under the current exchange controls acquiring more than US$ 10,000 per year is illegal and there is no legal way to obtain such an amount in cash in Venezuela.
c) The man may have also entered Venezuela with such an amount, instead of acquiring it locally, which would have also been a crime.
d) There may have been a crime committed by the PDVSA employees in receiving a ride to Argentina of it was for personal reasons. The son of a VP obviously was not there for business, so that his father may have committed a crime in asking for the favor using his position and/or influence.
e) Why wasn’t the luggage searched upon his departure from the private airport? Did someone use his/her influence so that procedures would not e followed?
But in the eyes of our esteemed Prosecutor, “the crime was committed there” and apparently not much happened in Venezuela, so who cares?
The truth is that this shows, once again and I am being very repetitive, how the country is being run by the crooks. How the General prosecutor has obviously been told from above not to do anything, because who knows how high up this thing goes, based on some of the players involved. And none other than the infamous Vice President Jorge Rodriguez, who used to run “fair” and “impartial” elections in Venezuela, claimed once again that this was a “media smokescreen, designed to diminish the impact of Chavez’s trip to South America”.
How cynical can you really be?
In contrast, Argentine justice is moving forward and a powerful man in the Kirchner administration already had to resign because of the case. But more on that in the next post.
*I have never felt comfortable with any of the translations I have seen for the name of this Law.
The Devil's Excrement 
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