Published at: 21/10/2026 09:00 PM

200 bankers who are fugitives from justice flee after embezzling $13 billion

(2001, January 5, 1995; Elite, March 15, 1994; Latest News, January 18, 1994; The New Country, October 10, 1994; El Nacional, August 13, 1987; El Globo, June 28, 1972)

• The equivalent of 18 Marshall Plans, 265 billion dollars, was embezzled and taken out of Venezuela between 1973 and 1995. This was reported by the writer Arturo Uslar Pietri in 1996, when he took stock of the oil revenues received due to the rise in oil prices.
• One of these assaults on the National Public Treasury was the shameful affair known as “El Latinazo”. Scandal involving the presidents and directors of 19 intervened banks who set up “dust feet” and fled the country after having used, for their own benefit, 13 billion dollars from financial aid, equivalent to 31% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• Of the 834 people involved, to whom Criminal Judge Diamora Ramírez de Simancas issued an arrest warrant for “misappropriation of public funds”, only one salaried employee of Banco Latino (BL), Daniel León Yallonardo, was paying jail on behalf of more than 200 bankers who were fugitives from justice.
• In the list of BL managers, who lived their lives abroad with Venezuelan money, the following were mentioned in the press:
  • Gustavo Gómez López (president)
  • Claudia Febres Cordero de Gómez (wife of the one mentioned above)
  • Juan Gómez López (brother of the above-mentioned)
  • Haydeé Gómez López (idem)
  • Gustavo E. Planchart Pocaterra
  • Fernando Antonio Lauría Romero
  • Ricardo Cisneros Rendiles
  • Eloy Alfredo Montenegro Salon
  • Mario Palenzola Bombis
  • Edwin Ezequiel Acosta Rubio
  • Giacomo Leon Rachelle
  • Arturo Malavé Álvarez
  • María Teresa Pulgar
  • Adolfo Malavé
  • María Espejo
  • Giuseppe Santoro Spadavechia
  • Miguel Ferro Ramos
  • Lermit Ricardo Mendoza Pelayo
  • Folco Maria Falchi Tibieri
• After the date of the BL's intervention, which occurred on Monday, January 16, 1994, 19 banks fell in effect, and in all cases arrest warrants were issued: “... for the commission of the crimes of exploiting or distracting money granted by public bodies, malicious approval of loans granted to related companies and appropriation or distraction of resources from a financial institution...”
• Among the defendants and fugitives from justice were the bankers:
  • José Álvarez Stelling, president of the Consolidated Bank
  • David Brillembourg, Metropolitan Bank
  • Rene Brillembourg, Metropolitan Bank
  • José Bauza, Banco Venezuela
  • Orlando Castro Llanes, president of Grupo Progreso
  • Roger Urbina, Superintendent of Banks, the latter accused of concealing bank offenses.
• The incumbent judge of the Thirty-Fourth Criminal Court of First Instance, Dr. Ramírez de Simancas, went over the great last names of the purest parentage and declared that none of the defendants would go unpunished. He then issued 162 arrest warrants (deprivation of liberty).
• However, at the time of the 300 home visits (raids) to arrest the defendants, the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) discovered that they had already taken an “early morning” fleeing the country in their respective private planes or first-class commercial flights.
• Coincidentally, a son-in-law of President Rafael Caldera, Fernando Araujo, executive director of the Metropolitan Bank, was given the data and escaped from Venezuela, being convicted in absentia for the crimes of “distraction and fraudulent use of public funds”, which entailed sentences of 2 to 10 years in prison.
• Among the beneficiaries of the fraudulent use of public funds are the Copeyan Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, who received 20 million bolivars from the fugitive Gustavo Gómez López, and his friend, the social Christian Vladimir Petit, the spouse of Nitu Pérez Osuna, son of the then Attorney General of the Republic, Jesús “El Chivo” Petit Acosta. Vladimir Petit, convicted and confessed, stated that he had received ill-gotten money from the hands of Orlando Castro Llanes to finance his political activities and sumptuous private life. On which he said that he did it “in the same way that other important Venezuelan and foreign politicians did.” Revealing how the framework of the society of accomplices worked in the Fourth Republic.

SUMMARY:

• As a “scapegoat”, only one of Gómez López's salaried subordinates went to jail.
• 7.5 million people were directly impacted by the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Latino and its effect triggered the fall of 18 financial institutions.
• By the day the BL had to descend the Santamaría, its president and main managers were all out of the country.
• The BL had been making up its financial statements since 1991, its accounts had been in the red since 1992 and, to prevent it from leaving the clearing house, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) had advanced more than 1,788 million dollars in financial aid to revive it.
• This rescue or economic rescue operation only served as a model for “rescuing other bankers” during the government of Rafael Caldera II, who, benefiting with more than 16 billion dollars, left Venezuela in ruins and like magnates went to live in Miami, London, Paris, Switzerland, Madrid and New York.
• On June 12, 1995, one year after the government, the Caldera rescue granted to bankers exceeded the amount of the nation's national budget.
• In this criminal association, politicians and bankers committed the following embezzlement acts:
  • Fraudulent approval of loans to companies you own.
  • Issuance of false documents to hide irregularities.
  • Forging public documents.
  • Misappropriation of public funds for their own benefit.
  • Continuity scam.
  • Preparation and publication of false financial statements.
  • Violation of fiduciary and tax rules.

Mazo News Team