Published at: 13/08/2025 09:00 PM

(VEA Journal, August 12, 2011 and Elite, July 1, 1980)

• On August 12, 1980, Leopoldo Díaz Bruzual, president of the Central Bank of Venezuela, announced at a press conference the swindle against the nation for 44 million bolivars ($10,232,558.10), in the acquisition of the refrigerated vessel Sierra Nevada, in which former president Carlos Andrés Pérez was directly involved.
• By that date, the Ethics Commission for Democratic Action (AD) had already ruled on the crime committed by Pérez, with criminal, administrative and political co-responsibility falling on him.
• Establishing that Pérez was jointly responsible for the loss caused to the nation in the exercise of the highest inauguration of the Venezuelan State in the fraudulent purchase of the ship.
• Likewise, the report stated that “there were people who acted dishonestly and obtained illegal benefits... who, in the process of negotiating and executing the contract for the purchase and sale of the ship Sierra Nevada, carried out a series of deceptive maneuvers with property damage to the Venezuelan nation.”
• However, by violating the parliamentary immunity of the former president and stripping him of his position as senator for life, the society of accomplices that dominated the parliamentary and media (RCTV), managed to prevent him from being definitively placed behind bars.
• Pérez, leaving the sessions of Congress that relieved him of serious charges, found the press packed outside the Federal Legislative Palace who questioned him about his opinion on the ruling, to which he was shocked and replied: “I don't think either, but quite the contrary.”
• To the surprise of the political world and public opinion in general, a fraction of the left-wing parties saved their vote, at the same time fixing the political future of Pérez, who, had he been convicted, would not have been able to run for president of the republic for the second time because he was constitutionally disqualified from office.
• That same year of 1980, the Attorney General of the Republic, without further inquiries, closed the case.
• Involved in this corruption scandal were, among others, Marcel Granier and his father-in-law Johnny Phelps, who contracted the purchase of the Sierra Nevada as president of the Venezuelan Development Corporation (CVF).
• The plot of the purchase of the refrigerated vessel was one of the many opportunities in which Carlos Andrés Pérez dedicated himself to looting the national treasure with full hands.

Mazo News Team