Alleged purchase of gold bars with stolen funds by Venezuela's former treasurer is at the center of a criminal investigation into a network of shell companies and dodgy Swiss bankers that have helped turn the country into one of the world's most corrupt.
The state court in Liechtenstein confirmed the authenticity of the request. Switzerland’s Attorney General’s office said it transmitted the information in May but is not conducting any criminal proceedings at the moment.
Ismael Oliver, the Madrid-based lawyer of both Díaz and her husband, said that his clients had “no knowledge, official or otherwise,” of the investigation by Liechtenstein.A key focus of the Liechtenstein investigation is Swiss banker Charles-Henry de Beaumont, who worked at the Geneva-based Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique SA at the same time Díaz oversaw the OPEC nation’s finances.
But the company Díaz allegedly used to purchase the gold, Amaze Holding Ltd., was registered in June 2012 at the same St. Vincent address within days of two other companies — Greenhill International Ltd. and Amblia Ltd. — that Beaumont allegedly owned and controlled, according to the Liechtenstein court.
Mark Pieth, a money-laundering expert at the University of Basel, Switzerland, said that CBH could lose its license or face other disciplinary action if it is determined they knew, or should’ve known, what Beaumont was doing for his Venezuelan clients. However, U.S. prosecutors in their exchanges with Swiss authorities in 2018 suggest the bank had itself been defrauded by Beaumont.
The gold bars allegedly belonging to Díaz represent just a small fraction of the total amount looted from Venezuela. But they stand as a powerful symbol of the boundless greed that fed a slew of intermediaries, from white-shoe boutique asset managers to some of Europe’s oldest banks.
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