FINCEN FILES
White House pick to run Venezuela oil deal under investigation in two countries
ICIJ’s 2020 FinCEN Files revealed that major banks flagged suspicious payments involving one of the Venezuelan tycoon’s companies, which remains at the heart of embezzlement investigations in Europe.
A massive oil deal between the U.S. and Venezuelan governments has revived the profile of Alejandro Betancourt, a businessman under investigation in Spain and Switzerland on suspicion of laundering billions of dollars out of Venezuela and into the European financial system.
On Monday, the White House announced details of a new deal with interim President Delcy Rodríguez giving the U.S. majority control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil. The deal comes after the January U.S. military seizure of former President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently jailed in New York.
Venezuela’s interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a privately held company and the second-largest private Venezuelan oil producer, 100-year concessions – the permits that allow for the exploration and production of crude – for 17 oil fields, according to the press release. The deal guarantees the U.S. access to 20% of the crude with right of first refusal to buy the remaining 80%.
Betancourt, a Venezuelan who attended Boston’s Suffolk University, is a majority shareholder in NABEP, according to ICIJ partner El País. In 2018, the businessman was also under investigation in the U.S. for theft of more than $1 billion from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, though no charges were ever filed.
As recently as May, Betancourt was living in the United Kingdom and fighting a Swiss extradition request over an investigation into alleged money laundering, the Financial Times reported. At the same time, authorities in Spain were also investigating his company Derwick Associates.
In 2020, BuzzFeed News’ and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ FinCEN Files investigation revealed how Betancourt and several other young Venezuelan businessmen known for their ties to the government moved vast sums of public money, including funds intended for housing and other basic services, out of the struggling Latin American country. The reporting was based on a leak of thousands of suspicious activity reports filed by banks to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Data from the FinCEN Files showed that Derwick used accounts at JPMorgan to move at least $2.1 million in 2011 and 2012 and that the bank processed other transactions of undisclosed amounts for Derwick and its managers at least into 2013. The files also showed that transactions between 2009 and 2017 involving Derwick Associates and flagged as suspicious amounted to $7.6 million.
In 2018, the U.S. Justice Department charged a senior Derwick executive in an alleged $1.2 billion bribery and money-laundering scheme. Betancourt, who was in his 20s when he co-founded Derwick with a younger cousin, was cited in the criminal complaint as an unnamed co-conspirator, according to reports by the Miami Herald, an ICIJ partner.
In its statement about its new oil venture with Venuezela, the White House did not mention Betancourt as the owner of NABEP, nor did it make any mention of the businessman’s current and past investigations.
Facts Only
* The White House announced a new deal with interim President Delcy Rodríguez giving the U.S. majority control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil.
* This deal followed the January U.S. military seizure of former President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently jailed in New York.
* Venezuela’s interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) 100-year concessions for 17 oil fields.
* The agreement guarantees the U.S. access to 20% of the crude with a right of first refusal to buy the remaining 80%.
* Alejandro Betancourt is a majority shareholder in NABEP.
* Betancourt was investigated in Spain and Switzerland regarding money laundering.
* In 2018, Betancourt was investigated in the U.S. for theft of more than $1 billion from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, with no charges filed.
* FinCEN Files revealed suspicious transactions involving Derwick Associates between 2009 and 2017 amounting to $7.6 million.
* The U.S. Justice Department charged a senior Derwick executive in an alleged $1.2 billion bribery and money-laundering scheme in 2018.
Executive Summary
A new agreement has been announced where the U.S. and Venezuela will deal a majority of Venezuelan oil to the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez, granting the U.S. control over 65 billion barrels. This follows the January seizure of former President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela's interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a private producer, 100-year concessions for 17 oil fields, guaranteeing the U.S. access to 20% of the crude with a right of first refusal over the remaining 80%.
This development resurfaces investigations into Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan businessman who is a majority shareholder in NABEP. Betancourt has faced investigations in Spain and Switzerland regarding alleged money laundering related to moving funds out of Venezuela into the European financial system. Furthermore, Betancourt was previously under U.S. investigation for theft from state-owned oil company assets and was involved in transactions flagged by FinCEN Files regarding Derwick Associates.
Full Take
The narrative connects sovereign resource agreements, geopolitical shifts, and historical financial misconduct within a single framework. The public announcement regarding the oil deal serves as a contemporary focus point for long-standing suspicions surrounding the movement of wealth from Venezuelan assets into the European financial system, as documented in the FinCEN Files. This structure suggests that large-scale resource transactions are not purely economic events but are entangled with illicit finance and historical accountability.
The pattern observed is the re-emergence of past financial activities—specifically those involving Derwick Associates and Betancourt—as context for current high-level negotiations. The omission by the White House regarding these investigations suggests a strategic separation between official policy objectives (the energy deal) and underlying legal scrutiny (money laundering, theft). This creates an information asymmetry where significant financial flows are obscured by geopolitical expediency.
The implication is that international resource deals can function as conduits for laundering systemic corruption, shifting accountability from the source of illicit wealth to the transactional outcome. The focus shifts from proving individual criminal acts to examining how large-scale state and corporate agreements facilitate the obfuscation of established financial irregularities. What remains unaddressed is the mechanism by which the pursuit of immediate energy security supersedes the mandate for transparent oversight of historical financial improprieties.
Sentinel — Human
The text is highly factual and structured like investigative reporting, relying on cited external sources to link a current geopolitical event to prior financial investigations involving the central figure.