Published at: 04/06/2025 08:00 PM

(DIARIO DE CARACAS, May 27, 1989 and EL NACIONAL, July 22, 1989)

Case: RECADI MOLINERAS GRAMOVEN C.A.

Crime: Fraudulent use of public funds in the overbilling of wheat imports, to obtain preferential currencies from the Differential Exchange Regime (RECADI). Government of Jaime Lusinchi.

Defendant: the Venezuelan Ambassador to Argentina, Nicomedes Zuloaga.

Amount defrauded: U$D 26,000,000.00

Whistleblowers: Postgraduate students from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and officers of the Armed Forces.

• Based on research carried out by the Armed Forces and based on the postgraduate thesis “The agri-food circle of wheat, imports, prices and industrial production”, carried out by professors and students of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, it was revealed that “Venezuela imports wheat at extremely high prices, much higher than those that serve as a reference in the international market... Venezuela buys wheat more expensive every day, what is getting cheaper in the market every day...”
• Given the conclusions of the thesis, Judge La Riva was able to demonstrate that Nicomedes Zuloaga, acting as Venezuelan Ambassador to Argentina, constantly traveled to Caracas to join the GRAMOVEN board of directors, so decisions were taken in his presence and with his approval.
• It was demonstrated that the above-mentioned ambassador, in the exercise of his office, requested, with a surcharge, preferential dollars from RECADI, so that wheat from Argentina could be imported through GRAMOVEN, overbilling the real costs of these transactions.
• Lt. Víctor Ali Piña Godoy was responsible for complying with the arrest warrant to imprison Ambassador Zuloaga for the crime of fraudulent use of public funds, so he handcuffed the detainee.
• At that time**, Zuloaga** threatened to destroy the officer's military career and private life, for which he used the full weight of his surname, as Master of the Valley.
• In retaliation, Lt. Piña Godoy was arrested for handcuffing Nicomedes Zuloaga and the Minister of Defense, as a result, ordered a delay in his promotion.
• Soon after, Lt. Piña was arbitrarily arrested by agents of the DISIP, at which point those officials planted a kilo and a half of cocaine on him.
• Later, a file was also planted for attempted suicide, while that police force was being held in the cells.
• At that time, the sign of “suicide” was practically a death sentence, so he had to ask for leave and leave his homeland.
• Coincidentally, all the lawsuits, cases and the respective investigations that followed Nicomedes Zuloaga were removed from the jurisdiction of Judge Luis Guillermo La Riva López, just when he had agreed, and ready for execution, detention measures, freezing of funds and prohibition of leaving the country against Zuloaga and other businessmen related to undue profit.
• By orders of Carlos Andrés Pérez, the cases were redistributed to other judges, who were under his control. In this way, judicial authority was diluted, the majesty of justice tainted and all its guiding principles violated.
• It should be remembered that on November 22, 1861, Nicomedes Zuloaga Aguirre, the great-grandfather of this illustrious thief, joined “a commission made up of Manuel Felipe de Tovar, Pedro Gual, Juan José Mendoza, Francisco de la Madriz, Federico Núñez de Aguilar and Aureliano Otáñez, who, imploring the intervention of a foreign power, offered to hand over shreds of their homeland, in exchange for imposing order and respect on their threatened properties”. In these terms, they offered to hand over the sovereign territories of our Guiana Esequiba.

Mazo News Team